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THE NEGRO, DEMOCRACY 
AND THE WAR 



COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY 
WALTER W. DELSARTE 



APR "I 1919 



THE NEGRO, 

DEMOCRACY AND 

THE WAR 



BY 
WALTER W. DELSARTE, LL. B. 



DETROIT 
WOLVERINE PRINTING CO. 

1919 



^t"^^" 



"Greater love hath no man than this, 
that he lay down his life for his friend." 



•CI.A5i5o90 



CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Foreword ' "^ 

CHAPTER I 
The Negro in The War 4-10 

CHAPTER II 
The Negro's Loyalty, 1 M 7 

CHAPTER III 
Germany and Her African Colonies 18-26 

CHAPTER IV 
Colored Soldiers at the Front 27-46 

CHAPTER V 
Things For Which We Fought 47-53 

CHAPTER VI 
Negro Republics in The War 54-58 

CHAPTER VII 
The War is Won 39-65 

CHAPTER VIII 
Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? ... 66-102 

CHAPTER IX 
Democracy as Applied to The Negro 103-1 18 

CHAPTER X 
Some Remedies For The Race Problem 1 19-135 



FOREWORD 

More than 2,000 years ago the people of 
Athens consulted the oracle at Delphi as to the 
best means of making great men of their boys; 
the answer, though somewhat ambiguous, was 
this: If the people of Athens wish to make great 
men of their boys, let them put whatever is most 
beautiful into the ears of youth. The Athenians, 
though they were wise indeed, failed to grasp the 
meaning of the oracle and secured golden ear- 
rings and placed them into the ears of their 
youths. 

This answer is just as full of meaning today as 
it was in the days of ancient Athens, and yet it is 
just as capable of being misunderstood as it was 
then. 

If the Negro race would make great men of its 
boys, let it place whatever is most beautiful into 
the ears of youth; not golden earrings, but golden 
truths. 

At no time in all the history of the colored 
people in America have they rejoiced with more 
enthusiasm than over their recent achievements 
and the prospects of a better day. The past year 



2 The Negro, Democracy and the War 

has been replete with universal chaos and tragedy, 
and yet the American people are rejoicing that 
civilization and democracy have been redeemed, 
it is to be hoped, for all time to come, and are jus- 
tifying themselves to the utmost parts of the 
earth. 

Never before has the Negro race had the op- 
portunity to cooperate with the proudest blood of 
civilization, and play so important a part in shap- 
ing the destinies of the world. 

These are the beautiful truths that shall ring in 
the ears of the youth of the race and inspire them 
with new hopes, pure ideals and a determination 
to attain greater heights. Historians of past wars 
seem to have overlooked the Negro, and have 
failed to connect him with the greatest military 
events in which our nation has been involved. 
The outside world has been kept in darkness as to 
the Negro's bravery as a soldier, loyalty as a citi- 
zen and economic and industrial value in the in- 
tricate machinery of America's national affairs. 

It was left for the Negro, in the great world 
war, to testify through the instrumentality of the 
machine gun, hand grenade and other implements 
of warfare, to his unswerving loyalty to the stars 
and stripes, and devotion to the cause of human 
freedom throughout the world. 



Foreword 3 

It is to be hoped that this volume will awaken 
in the American Negro a sounder appreciation of 
what this bewildering, baffling, awful struggle has 
meant, and for w^hich our best efforts have been 
spent. Amid this terrible wreck, our §ouls must 
still be filled with courage and an unshaken con- 
fidence in the onward progress of the race, and 
with a faith in the everlasting principles of right, 
of justice, and of truth which must prevail. 

March 1st, 1919. 

WALTER W. DELSARTE. 



CHAPTER I 



The Negro in the War 

The Negro brought to America no hopes, am- 
bitions or aspirations ; he sought neither gold nor 
land, nor came he in quest of religious or political 
freedom. He came as a slave. Through long 
weary years of unprecedented submission to the 
most cruel form of oppression, the black man 
tilled the rich soil of America. 

The most striking characteristic of the Negro is 
the comparative eaise with which he adapts him- 
self to new conditions. Hardly had he become 
acquainted with his new status as a slave when he 
began gradually to imbibe the civilization that 
surrounded him on all sides. In this brief work 
it will be impossible to elaborate upon the various 
steps which have marked the race's progress to- 
ward the highest standards of modern civilization. 

Less than sixty years ago the Negro obtained 
his freedom from the bonds of slavery, and today 
he stands forth as not the least among the defend- 
ers of the honor of the nation that so long held 

4 



The Negro in The War 5 

him in bondage. Trying to forget the injustice 
we have met on all sides, we shouldered arms in 
our country's cause, firm in our belief that a 
better day would dawn for us after the great 
struggle for democracy. With every ounce of its 
energy, every cent of its money and every life, if 
need be, the Negro race flung itself into the con-- 
flict, realizing that no single act of any individual 
could be so unimportant as not to have a bearing 
upon the outcome of the great enterprise we had 
undertaken. 

Since the spark which was struck in Servia in 
August, 1914, developing a world-wide confla- 
gration, which finally leaped across the Atlantic, 
hundreds of Negroes* lives have been sacrificed 
upon the battlefields of France fighting in the 
armies of England, France and the United States 
for the establishment and perpetuation of world 
democracy; and although conscious of the hor- 
rors and dangers of warfare, we in America are 
not lacking in appreciation of the glorious privi- 
lege of fighting for the honor and security of our 
nation, and the civilization and democracy of the 
woj-ld. 

After America entered this war we began to 
place a revaluation on our humble daily lives. 
More and more each of us feels too small to grasp 



6 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

the world issues of today, yet at the same time 
finds inactivity unbearable. We turn to the near- 
est task in desperate desire to make it somehow 
count for relief and restoration to a war-ridden 
world. 

Over there in the seared and harried land of 
France, are those boys whose voices have so often 
called to us; whose little feet came pattering to 
our call. They fought to free the world of a 
blighting curse. In the night they kept the long 
tense vigil, in the grey dawn they moved across 
the tortured soil. 

Throughout all this land every household that 
has possessed a boy has treated him with a new 
sympathy, a real, if often awkward, tenderness. 
With the threat of loss always over our heads we 
are learning how much we love. 

As we read the records of the hearts of our 
brothers and sons **over there** we know that no 
holocaust can unself the soul, and that the death- 
less privileges of friendship and of kinship and of 
the beauty of nature can be interrupted, but never 
destroyed. How beneficient a privilege the mere 
fact of an unbroken family circle appears, now 
that yonder by the hearth a shrouded form of 
mystery sits listening to our careless chat! We, 
the obscure, sorrowing fathers and mothers, sis- 



The Negro in The War 7 

ters and brothers of young Negro soldiers killed, 
we, the mourners all over the land, want to feel 
that our lives are moving in tune with theirs. 
Many of these colored boys that were sent to the 
front to fight for humanity and build up a world 
peace that will last to eternity are scarcely out of 
childhood. Mothers are bewildered that the lads 
whom they have just been teaching the ways of 
right and wrong and reprimanding for boyish 
pranks and bad manners are appointed to settle 
the biggest problem of the ages — to face the most 
vital situations and dangers and horrors with a 
courage that must not fail and a determination 
that must not falter. 

Boys who still display the curves of childhood 
have done a man's job— a big man's job— and 
have done it well. The colored boys went into 
battle with the grim determination of manhood, 
and if they came out, came wth a laugh and an 
unquenchable fund of animal spirits that was the 
envy of the older comrades. One officer — a 
major — remarked, with a choke in his voice, that 
when he met the colored lads in the trenches, 
smeared with mud and blood and grime of battle, 
worn out by loss of sleep and lack of all comforts, 
and they saluted him with a smile, as they in- 
variably did, he could not help thinking of the 
great debt of gratitude which America owes to 



8 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

these colored boys who so bravely fought to 
maintain the honor of their country. 

It seems strange that there should be such men 
as these in a democracy. But they are here in 
numbers of appalling magnitude. These are the 
men whom Theodore Parker had in mind when 
he spoke of the sad patience of the multitudes. 
These are the men of whom William James was 
thinking when he wrote his great treatise on the 
laws of habit. These are the men who hold to- 
gether the fabrics of society in times of peace, 
and sustain unshaken the prolonged and awful 
agonies of war. Like Tennyson's Brigade at 
Balaklava — 

"Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die." 

It is the irony, the tragedy of this monstrous 
thing that it takes the young, the untried, the 
best, the purest; like the minotaur, it must have 
sacrifice, and this sacrifice must be oflfered by 
those who should rightly be the last. Boys right 
from the schoolroom, who have never known 
care or responsibility — who have never been far 
from home — who have depended on father or 
mother to decide all problems for them, have 
marched away from the home shelter and care to 



The Negro in The War 9 

a suddenly acquired manhood and independence. 
They fought fearlessly and grimly; they played 
with the carelessness of children. Brave, reso- 
lute, inexorable, thoughtless, irrepressible, they 
marched on to the bitter end regardless of cost or 
sacrifice, inspired by their faith that in this holy 
struggle they may be moved by righteous motives 
and wage a victorious warfare, until the founda- 
tions of peace and justice shall be established that 
v/ill glorify the name of America and abide to 
bless all coming generations. 

I cannot help but think of the Negro mother 
who, surrounded by adversity and prejudice, has 
worked and struggled hard to raise her only son. 
Perhaps today he sleeps beneath the soil of 
France. She knows not where. Perhaps she 
never will know. But, often in the silent hours, 
her memory returns to the day he came to her. 
How gloriously happy she was. What brave 
plans she made. How she hoped and prayed for 
the little fellow's future. She saw him grow into 
childhood. She watched through the weary hours 
of illness. She helped him over the hard places. 
He was her idol, her life. She remembers his 
merry laugh at toy soldier battles around the 
Christmas tree. He grew to manhood. He ob- 
tained employment, learned a trade or entered 



1 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

business, and everything seemed bright. Then 
the war clouds gathered. True to the urge of his 
conscience, he longed to go. She told him through 
tears, there was but one thing to do. Her boy 
became a soldier. Proudly she wore a service pin 
with star of blue. In October, 1917, she said 
good-bye — the last good-bye, but she did not 
know it. 

One evening the Germans attacked our lines, 
first with gas, then with high explosives. The 
boy's mask was carried away; an instant later a 
shell tore off an arm. This unfortunate mother's 
star was turned to gold. He is but one son, she 
but one mother — ^but he was all she had. One 
son does not count for much, perhaps — ^but there 
are thousands of mothers w^ho have given all 
they had. 



CHAPTER II 



The Negro's Loyalty 

This war has done more for the Negro than has 
been accomplished in several decades of peace. 
Not only has he demonstrated, as he has done in 
past wars, that he can fight, but that his willing- 
ness and capacity for work are unlimited ; that he 
can easily adapt himself to strange surroundings, 
and that he understands the purpose of Liberty 
Bonds which he invariably bought until it actually 
and positively **hurt.** 

One of the most glorious things which hap- 
pened to the Negro, however, was the revelation 
of his absolute, unshakable loyalty to the stars 
and stripes. Evidence adduced before the Senate 
Committee investigating German propaganda 
shows that German propagandists failed miser- 
ably in their efforts among the colored people. 
That they operated principally among the planta- 
tion Negroes of the South, and there made no 
headway whatever, is significant. It is a splendid 

tribute to the Americanism of the Negro. It 

n 



12 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

might be supposed that among men and women 
who are not regular readers of the newspapers, 
who trust to the * 'grapevine,** which makes a 
wireless station of every cabin, for most of their 
information, the fairy tales of the paid German 
agents would find fertile ground. But the Negro 
stood pat. **You have no country," was an in- 
sidious remark that was dinned into his ears night 
and day. * 'You'll never get your Liberty Bond 
money back** was another. "You'll get forty 
acres of land if the Germans win,** they were told. 
And they were assured that victory for the "hu- 
mane** Germans meant an end of all lynching 
and instant leveling of all social lines in the 
United States. 

Many white intellectuals in the North suc- 
cumbed to sophistries and lies, but those black 
millions did not. Their hearts proved pure gold 
and they stood by Uncle Sam. The Secret Ser- 
vice needed no special trains for Negro excur- 
sions to internment camps. 

It is the same inborn spirit of loyalty to the 
government that has prevented the I. W. W. from 
gaining converts among the colored people of the 
South, no matter how poor they are, or how un- 
just their position economically. The southern 
Negro who remained at home to till the fields was 



The Negro's Loyalty 13 

proud of his part in the war, because he knew 
that his was the hand that sustained the boys at 
the front. 

But the Negro is not unduly proud of the 
proofs of his loyalty. He knew he was 1 00 per 
cent American all the time. He knows, incident- 
ally, a great many things that other people do not 
think he knows. An intelligent southerner will 
tell you that one of the greatest mistakes of north- 
ern theorists in considering the Negro is that he 
thinks he is simple and easily fooled. 

A recent issue of the Memphis Commercial- 
Appeal, a leading southern newspaper, contains 
the following editorial: 

**Before the war began there was German 
propaganda throughout the South. One of the 
Prussian schemes was to have an uprising of Ger- 
mans combined with the uprising of Negroes. 
They drew this vision from the history of the 
revolt in Hayti 125 years ago. To the eternal 
glory of the Negroes let it be said that the pro- 
German propaganda made less headway among 
them than it did among the white people. When 
the war broke out there was no place for the 
Negroes to volunteer. The regular army regi- 
ments were filled. At first the Negroes did not 
understand the selective draft, but they finally 



1 4 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

began to see that the great draft machine knew 
no color. It gathered in -whites as well as blacks. 
The Negroes in the army found out that great 
things were expected from them and they re- 
sponded. 

**The southern Negroes responded generously 
to all calls — for the Red Cross, the Thrift Stamps, 
Liberty Loans and united war work. At the close 
of the war some of them were in quiet sectors on 
the front and four regiments had been in the 
heaviest fighting. Many Negro pioneer regi- 
ments worked under fire. When the history of 
the war is written southern men should study it 
carefully and draw from it certain lessons they 
must apply to the Negro problem. The Negro in 
the South will be with us all the time, if we let 
him be. He will do splendid work in building up 
the South if we sympathetically show him the 
way. 

**It must be made so that whatsoever he earns 
in the sweat of his brow shall be his, and it must 
be further made so that any man will not stoop to 
take advantage of the Negro in commerce or in 
labor and deprive him of what is his right and 
what should come to him under law. In the 
recent war the Negroes have served their country 
well.** 



The Negro's Loyalty 15 

This is perhaps the fairest editorial I have ever 
read in a southern newspaper concerning the 
Negro. It seems that the Commercial Appeal 
represents that class of journals that would have 
the South rise to the dignity of a square deal. 

As the pride in our Negro soldier grew in this 
country a very violent dislike for him spread all 
along the German front. In more than one place 
the color line and the front line of battle merged 
into one — to the rage and dismay of the Hun. 
The Teuton prejudice against color would have 
been even more intense if Germany could have 
known what the American boys were doing in 
every department of war work. Our enemies 
have felt the force of Negro valor as exemplified 
by Henry Johnson wth his bolo knife, and Need- 
ham Roberts with his stack of bombs; but there 
is more behind. 

Of the stevedores, George Freeman, the Amer- 
ican labor contractor (who took 1 500 of them to 
France) says: *'They are the finest workers you 
ever saw. One Negro can do four times as much 
work as any other man, and have fun doing it. 
The French stevedores stand by and look on with 
amazement at my hustling gangs. The way they 
handle a 1 00-pound crate makes the Frenchmen's 
eyes bulge." 



1 6 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

In the shipbuilding yards the whirlwind 
methods of the Negroes have caused a sensation 
both in this country and England. Charles 
Knight, a Negro, won the prize for riveting — 25 
pounds in money — from Lord Northcliffe and a 
letter from that Englishman which says: **Your 
world's record feat in rivet driving on May 1 6th 
has set for American shipbuilders the fast pace 
that is necessary for carrying on the war success- 
fully. Such an achievement as yours carries 
across the seas an inspiring message of American 
determination and ability.** 

Seven hundred volunteer Negro women went 
to France to work in the huts and canteens of the 
Y. M. C. A. and there are many Negro secretaries 
in this same service abroad! The Red Cross 
placed Negro nurses in base hospitals in this 
country, and hundreds of graduate Negro nurses 
have been engaged in oversea service. 

All over the country 1 2,000,000 Negro Ameri- 
cans are loyally backing the government with 
their hard-earned money. Out of their wages 
and savings they paid $20,000,000 for the four 
issues of the Liberty Loan Bonds. They gave 
$1,300,000 to the first Red Cross drive and 
$2,300,000 to the second, besides investing $10,- 
000,000 in Thrift Stamps. All this taken in con- 



The Negro's Loyalty \7 

nection with the fact that 300,000 of our boys 
actually saw service in France, we feel safe in 
saying that the American Negro has kept the 
faith with Uncle Sam. 

Vast is the treasure we have sacrificed, bitter is 
the suffering we have endured, in this most hor- 
rible of all wars; but we have made the sacrifice 
with enthusiasm, and borne the burden of sorrow 
with courage, assured that in so doing we have 
helped to make the world a better and safer place 
in v/hich to live. 



CHAPTER III 



Germany and Her African Colonies 

The history of Germany's treatment of the 
colored people in her African colonies disgraces 
the records of all colonizing nations in a rougher, 
more brutal age. It is true that the natives of 
Africa cannot be left to govern themselves v/hen 
they have pushing white neighbors all around 
them. The American Indians are proof enough 
of that. Nevertheless, I believe that one of the 
results of this war will be a general awakening 
among the people of Africa, and their interests 
are going to be consulted ; there must be no more 
of that ruthless enslaving of native populations, 
their robbery by swindling treaties and their 
murder by wholesale. Mankind has advanced, 
even among the Negroes of Africa, and coloniza- 
tion for the benefit of the native, as well as the 
colonist, will be the rule hereafter. 

It is not, however, the rule for Germany, which 

enslaves, tortures, and murders in the true spirit 

of the conquerors of Peru four hundred years 

18 



Germany and Her African Colonies 19 

ago. And Germany must leave Africa, since she 
has nothing to do with Africans except to enslave 
and kill them. There may be some who take a 
utilitarian view of it, who say that these coun- 
tries must be developed at whatever cost. Well, 
by that rough test, too, Germany fails. She can- 
not colonize ; she does not know how. Her only 
idea of making a colony is to put up a replica of 
Germany on African soil without the slightest 
regard to whether it fits that soil or not. 

No colonist could do business wthout consult- 
ing Berlin; and since colonization, to be success- 
ful, requires initiative and does not thrive under 
delays, German colonization was strangled in its 
cradle. The German imposed such a heavy tax 
on diamonds that the amount smuggled is be- 
lieved to be more than the amount regularly ex- 
ported. The heavy hand of the government has 
made the copper mines almost unproductive. 
Meanwhile the colonists have been loaded down 
with heavy taxation. What they got to show for 
it was splendid public buildings, statues in the 
best style of German art, immense schools with 
few pupils in them, and so on. 

The cruelties and atrocities in Belgium and 
France that have horrified the civilized world have 
been practiced constantly on these defenseless 
Negroes. The Germans in these colonies were 



20 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

openly immoral, and they treated the native 
women abominably. A German planter would 
have a regular harem of native women and live 
the most degraded life imaginable without having 
the least shame about it or making the least at- 
tempt at concealment. But this form of immoral- 
ity was not the only thing that was dreadful 
among the Germans of these colonies. The Ger- 
mans did not want to be bothered with native 
children, and when a settler found that one of 
these native women whom he kept was about to 
become a mother, he either cast her off and sent 
her back to the bush, or just quietly poisoned her, 
and not only did they treat the native women 
shamefully, they insulted and degraded their own 
wives. I once heard of an English woman who 
married a German planter from one of the Afri- 
can colonies, and went out to help him, as she 
thought, to settle the land. When she got there 
she found he had half a dozen native * 'wives** on 
the plantation. She remonstrated, but he tried to 
force her to receive these women in her house 
and join in their drinking. When she refused he 
told her she could go to the bush. She ran away 
from him and succeeded in getting to friends in 
an English colony. 

These German planters used to go back to 
Europe with a little money, tell the women they 



Germany and Her African Colonies 21 

met at home that they were kings out in Africa, 
and make the women who married them think 
that they were going out to the colonies to be 
queens. It is true the men were kings, but the 
women were not queens, even in their own house- 
holds. The whole performance in the German 
colonies in Africa from 1890 to the outbreak of 
the war is similar to the conduct of Germans in 
Belgium and northern France during the war. 

The natives were treated as the conquistadors 
treated the ancient Peruvians, except that the 
conquistadors did seem to know how to make 
their slaves work. Germany's African history 
has been a long procession of **wars*'; that is, 
massacres, torturings, and deportations. In south- 
west Africa they reduced the native population 
from 200,000 to 82,000 in three years. They 
drove women and children into the desert to die 
of thirst, and this not as the ordinary brutality 
of ignorant settlers, but as a military operation. 
General von Trotha*s proclamation to the Herero 
nation, dated October 2, 1904, contains this: 

**The Herero nation must now leave the coun- 
try. If the people do it not, I will compel them 
with the big gun. Within the German frontier, 
every Herero, with or without a rifle, with or 
without cattle, will be shot. I will not take over 



22 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

any more women and children, but I will either 
drive them back to their people or have them 
fired on. These are my words to the nation of 
the Hereros.** 

In the recently issued report of the South- 
African administrator of the captured German 
colonies the following appears: 

**The natives were reduced almost to a state of 
slavery, families even being separated to suit the 
convenience of employers. Their women were 
habitually maltreated by the Germans, who took 
them into forced concubinage. They were in the 
end deliberately goaded into rebellions which 
were suppressed with deliberate and ruthless 
cruelty, and which resulted in the practical ex- 
termination of the tribes involved.'* 

The London Daily Telegraph gives in its com- 
ment on this report a few sidelights on the sup- 
pression of the Herero rebellion: 

*Tor more than a year, with the full connivance 
of the Kaiser and the German government at 
Berlin, this little band of German cutthroats 
slaughtered the Hereros — men, w^omen and chil- 
dren alike — wherever they found them, in cir- 
cumstances of the most sickening cruelty, which 
are set forth in the pages of this Blue Book. We 
will quote one single incident only. Von Tirotha 



Germany and Her African Colonies 23 

and his staff halted one day near a hut where an 
old woman was digging for wild onions. A 
zealous German soldier, named Konig, jumped 
off his horse and shot her through the forehead 
at point-blank range. Thinking that she would 
beg for mercy, he said before he fired, *I am going 
to kill you.* She simply looked up and replied, 
*I thank you.' Death was the only friend of this 
martyred race. The Germans drove the Hereros 
into the bush, and then poisoned the water holes 
on the desert borders. When at length they 
deemed that the time had come to make peace 
with the pitiful remnant of the race, they sent a 
few thousands down to Luderitzbucht, where, as 
one of the Hereros chiefs describes it, 'they died 
like flies that had been poisoned* from the wet 
sea-fogs. The survivors, their spirit crushed and 
broken, were mere chattels and slaves of the 
German settlers, victims at pleasure of their 
brutality and their lust, and so they remained 
until the forces of the South- African Union re- 
stored to them once more the hope of freedom 
which ten years of unspeakable suffering had 
well-nigh crushed out.** 

The foregoing recital of facts can give us but 
a vague idea of the gross cruelties perpetrated 
by Germany upon the Negro race. But the day 
of retribution is at hand. 



24 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it also 
unto me." 

And thus the Negro soldiers plunged into this 
mighty conflict, praying to God as they fought, 
that if democracy shall be one of the fruits of this 
war, their unfortunate brother in Africa may 
share in its blessings. 

Instance after instance of base hypocracy and 
wanton cruelty of the German nation could be 
recited, and yet w^e might be in relative darkness 
concerning many of the cruel methods employed 
by Germany to further her selfish and un- 
righteous purposes. 

To return the German colonies to German 
sovereignty is unthinkable in view of the use 
which the Imperial German Government has 
made of its power over these territories in the 
past. ; on the other hand, to permit them to be- 
come mere derelicts in the world is equally im- 
possible. A practical course seems therefore 
their control by the organs of the proposed 
League of Nations and their administration in 
the sole interest of their inhabitants with a view 
to improving theii' physical, mental, moral, eco- 
nomic and political conditions, so that sooner or 
later they will become self-governing peoples. 



Germany and Her African Colonies 25 

Before passing from this phase of the subject 
I want to make further reference to the incon- 
sistency and hypocracy of the German Govern- 
ment: 

In the peace note of the German Chancellor 
to President Wilson, the request for an armistice 
is stated to be made **with a view to avoiding 
further bloodshed!'* 

For the information of those who may still en- 
tertain a lingering belief in the sincerity of this 
declaration, may I recall a comparatively recent 
diplomatic incident of deep significance at the 
present time? 

At the second International Peace Conference 
held at The Hague from June to October, 1907, 
various conventions were entered into by the 
powers for the purpose of mitigating the evils 
and horrors of w^ar. These conventions, to which 
Germany was one of the most willing signatories, 
respectively provided for the safety of noncom- 
batabts at sea and on land. They prohibited, ex- 
cept in cases of extreme military necessity, the 
bombardment of unfortified towns without due 
notice being given. They expressly prohibited the 
destruction of sacred edifices, buildings used for 
artistic, scientific, or charitable objects, historic 
monuments, and hospitals; and they specifically 



26 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

forbade the employment of poison weapons or 
materials calculated to treacherously kill individ- 
uals belonging to the hostile nation or army, or to 
cause them unnecessary suffering. In the pre- 
amble to each of these conventions, the purpose 
was declared as being **to serve the interests of 
humanity and to diminish the severity and dis- 
asters of war,** or, alternatively, **to serve the in- 
terests of humanity and the ever-increasing needs 
of civilization.** 

When we look back at the sinking of the Lusi- 
tania, the murder of Edith Cavell, of Captain 
Fryatt, and thousands of other innocent men, 
women and children; the instances, not isolated, 
of Louvain and Rheims ; the deliberate bombard- 
ment of Allied hospitals, and the introduction as 
weapons of war of poison gas and liquid fire, no 
further evidence is necessary to determine the 
value of German professions to **avoid blood- 
shed** or **to serve the cause of humanity.** 



CHAPTER IV 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 

A striking illustration of the attitude of the 
Negro soldier in this war is a letter written from 
the front by Lieut. Osceola E. McKaine, a Negro 
serving with the 367th Infantry, the "Buffaloes,'* 
as adjutant to Colonel James A .Moss, command- 
ing the regiment, to Orlando Rouland, the artist, 
in which he tells something of the regiment's re- 
ception in France. Lieut. McKaine, who is 
twenty-six years old, rose from the ranks of a 
colored regiment, the 24th Infantry. He was 
born in South Carolina, and when little more than 
a boy left his birthplace in response to what he 
calls the nomadic spirit of his migratory ances- 
tors, and wandered about the country. He 
studied in Boston and Washington and developed 
a talent for writing. He prepared many articles 
for newspapers, and later became the editor of a 
colored newspaper which advocated the policies 
and principles of Booker T. Washington. After 
holding this place for nearly two years he enlisted 

in the Army. **I was persuaded," he said, **by a 

27 



28 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

trooper who would have been a marvel as a re- 
cruiting sergeant.** When he served in the 
Philippines the Negro regiment to which he be- 
longed received a gold loving cup at a dinner 
given by the Mayor of Manila and the Governor 
General for the best regiment that had ever been 
on the islands. The 24th Infantry was then 
ordered to a military camp in New Mexico, where 
it was stationed until the spring of 1916, when it 
was ordered to **get Villa.** When his regiment 
marched out of Mexico back to the United States, 
after acting as a personal guard of General Persh- 
ing, it was the only regiment that did not have a 
man missing or unaccounted for. Lieut. McKaine, 
while stationed at Columbus, N. M., as a non- 
commissioned officer, was selected for the Na- 
tional Army Training Camp for officers. Just 
before the * 'Buffaloes,** 367th Infantry, was or- 
ganized to be a part of the American Expedition- 
ary Force, Lieut. McKaine received the commis- 
sion of First Lieutenant. Here is his letter: 
"My dear friend: 

*'Just a line or two to let you know that I have 
not forgotten you even during these strenuous 
days. The delicate and pleasing charm of your 
home and the cordiality of your reception still 
remain vivid amid my many reminiscences. I 
thank you. The deportment of our regiment has 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 29 

been excellent, and we have had few, very few, 
offenders. Our morale is still at the peak, and we 
have every confidence that we will hold our own 
against the boche when we meet him. We have 
received a most wonderful reception everywhere 
we have gone, and I am most proud to relate that 
very, very few of the men have violated our con- 
fidence in their attitude toward the inhabitants. 
The Buffaloes have been *tres polit,' and have 
made friends. Of course, this new freedom re- 
quired strict control and delicate adjustment to 
prevent its misinterpretation, but all of our appre- 
hensions are over, for it has become quite natural 
for the Buffaloes to go everywhere, anytime, with 
anyone without misconstruing the character of 
the person or place. As for myself, I have never 
before experienced what it meant to be really 
free to taste real liberty, in a phrase, *to be a 
man.* We have entered into their most intimate 
affections, and we won't violate their trust. 

"We've got the boche on the run and we are 
going to lick him good and plenty before we give 
him time to catch his breath. Everywhere the 
offensive spirit is alive, pulsating, waiting for the 
hour to strike, and strike hard, that the spirit of 
real and true democracy will not perish. It would 
be a crime against God Himself, against future 
generations, against all that life holds good and 



30 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

pure to permit the Germanic doctrinaire to sup- 
plant the peaceful policy of this nation. I would 
be happy to have millions of colored soldiers over 
here, fighting to preserve the dearest and highest 
valued thing on earth, to the nations of the world 
and to future generations — liberty. I would be 
more than happy to have them die, if need be, as 
a tangible expression of their determination that 
*the government of the people, by the people, 
shall not perish from the earth.' I am eager for 
the fray. Death does not matter, for it will mean 
life for thousands of my countrymen, and for my 
race, for right must triumph. I am not appre- 
hensive of the future of my people in the states, 
for the free allied nations of the world will not 
condone America's past treatment of her colored 
citizens in the future; for shall we not have 
fought beside the best blood, the best white blood 
in all the world in the holiest war of all ages? 
Shall we not have shown that we are willing, nay, 
eager to pay, and pay dearly, in our blood for the 
right of the peoples of the earth to share equally 
in its blessings, to enjoy the same rights, to re- 
ceive equal justice, to have a voice in their gov- 
ernment by our blood contribution ? So I go for- 
ward certain and sure that my people will share 
equally with Armenian and Serb in the fruits of 
triumph, of right over might, and democracy over 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 31 

autocracy. Death is nothing, for I love my race 
more than Hfe itself. 

**With felicitations and best wishes for your 
continued health, I am, sincerely yours, 

**LIEUT. O. E. McKAINE." 
It was that type of soldier represented by 
McKaine, whom Edgar A. Guest had in mind 
when he recently wrote the following poem : 

* 'Against the dangers that we dread, 
Against the word that he lies dead. 
If it should come, we have the pride 
Of knowing that he put aside 
All selfish pleasures and was glad 
To give the Flag the best he had. 
Against the absence long and grim 
We keep the manly soul of him : 
Balanced against the hurt and ache 
That longing for our boy must make. 
This consolation we may know 
That he was unafraid to go. 
Great though our grief shall be if he 
Shall never more come home from sea, 
More keenly we'd have felt the pain 
If he had chosen to remain. 
This golden thought shall soothe our woe : 
In such a need he wished to go. 

If it must be that he shall fall 



32 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

His spoken words we can recall. 
When time has dried our bitter tears, 
His voice shall speak throughout the years, 
And we shall hear him whispering low : 
'Far worse than death were not to go.* ** 

Thus, the urge of war was in the Negro's 
blood, pulsating wth the obscure memories of 
generations of ancestors who had known the bit- 
terness and exultation of desperate conflict. 

Leon J. Cadore, formerly a pitcher with the 
Brooklyn Nationals and now a lieutenant with 
the American Army of Occupation, in a letter to 
**Red** Smith, former St. Louis Nationals out- 
fielder, says that the fighting of the Negro troops 
is wonderful. 

Cadore is with the 365th Regiment, formerly 
the 1 5th New York (Negro) Regiment, which 
was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French 
commanding general for its operations as a com- 
bat unit in the offensive in the Champagne sector 
last September and October. 

Despite exciting experiences, Cadore is willing 
to call it enough and return to the United States. 

**Red, it will be a happy day for me,** he writes, 
**when I hear that we are going home. You know 
that I am anxious to make the spring training trip 
with the Brooklyn Club, and again feel as though 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 33 

I am in the land of the living. I think base ball 
will have a big year. Should I be lucky enough 
to get home this spring I know I will be set for a 
big year on the slab.'* 

The letter states that Cadore*s was the first 
American regiment to reach the Rhine. Describ- 
ing the fighting qualities of the Negro troops 
under his command, Cadore says : 

**On occasions too numerous to count we were 
in the thick of the fighting and the noble work 
done by these Negro troops was wonderful. 
Every man in my regiment fought with the cour- 
age of a lion.** 

It would be possible to quote from hundreds of 
letters of white soldiers written to their friends in 
the United States, iti which they commend their 
black countrymen for their bravery in battle. It 
need not be said that the sentiment created by 
such correspondence is, indeed, beneficial to both 
races. 

These white men will never forget the colored 
soldiers with whom they fought, side by side, to 
save their common country from a common 
enemy. Whatever may be their activities in the 
years to come, whatever may be their future re- 
lations with the Negro, their reminiscences of the 



34 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

battle line in France will be replete with thoughts 
of their brave colored comrades. 

Those who have suffered hardship, side by side, 
day by day, month in and month out, cannot help 
being overcome by a feeling that after all, life 
means the same to each and every one. 

Some men need such experiences to remove 
the veil of prejudice that obscures their vision of 
the real worth of the American Negro and to 
bring them into closer communion with the true 
spirit of democracy. 

Colonel James A. Moss, recently speaking of 
the Negro soldier, said : 

"Understanding the Negro as I do, and know- 
ing his responsibilities as a soldier, I consider my- 
self fortunate in having been assigned to the com- 
mand of a colored regiment. Of my twenty-three 
years* experience as an officer, I have spent eigh- 
teen with colored troops, having commanded 
colored troops in the Cuban campaign, and in the 
Philippine campaign, so that what I say about the 
colored soldier — my faith, my confidence in him 
— is based on long experience with him in garri- 
son and in the field ; in peace and in war. I do not 
hesitate to make the assertion that if properly 
trained and instructed, the Negro will make as 
good a soldier as the world has ever seen. The 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 35 

proper training and instruction of the Negro sol- 
dier is a simple problem — it merely consists in 
treating him like a man, in a fair and square way, 
and in developing the valuable military assets he 
naturally possesses in the form of a happy dis- 
position, pride in the uniform, tractability, and 
faithfulness. Anyone who says the Negro will 
not fight, does not, of course, know w^hat he is 
talking about. 

"The first fight I ever was in, the battle of El 
Caney, Cuba, July 1 , 1 898, I had Negroes killed 
and wounded all around me, 20 per cent of my 
company having been killed and wounded in 
about ten minutes' time, and the behaviour of 
the men was splendid. At no time during that 
and subsequent fights, did my men hesitate at the 
command to advance or falter at the order to 
charge. I expect my colored regiment to be fully 
as well drilled, as well instructed, as well behaved, 
and as good fighters, as any other regiment in the 
National Army. Lest some might think that 
what I have to say about the Negro soldier is only 
the fulsome words of a 'Yankee' Negro-phile, let 
me say that I am a native Louisianian who did 
not leave the confines of the state until I went to 
West Point at the age of eighteen," 

No more reliable authority is needed for the 



36 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

bravery of colored soldiers in this world war than 
the French War Department, which cited a com- 
plete Negro regiment for the Croix de Guerre, 
which is an honor conferred by the French War 
Department only in exceptional cases. The regi- 
ment honored is the 365th Infantry of the 93rd 
Division, the old 1 5th Infantry of the National 
Guard of New York. The War Department 
praises the regiment in the following words : 

** Under command of Colonel Hay ward, who, 
though wounded, insisted on leading his regiment 
in battle ; of Lieutenant-Colonel Pickering, admir- 
ably cool and brave; of Major Cobb (killed), of 
Major Spencer (severely wounded), of Major 
Little, a true leader of men, the 365th Reserve In- 
fantry, U. S. A., engaging in an offensive for the 
first time in the drive of September, 1918, 
stormed powerful enemy positions, energetically 
defended, too, after heavy fighting, the town of 

S , captured prisoners, and brought back 

six cannons and a great number of machine 
guns.** 

The Negroes were, perhaps, the most proficient 
bayonet-fighters in the American Army. They 
simply doted on the cold steel, and their natural 
agility, improved by intensive training, made 
them troops to be feared at close quarters. It was 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 37 

not long before the fame of the Negro bayonet- 
wielders spread among the Huns, and it was sel- 
dom the German troops would hold out, when the 
yelling, sweating Negroes jumped into their 
trenches. 

Not even liquid fire could break the morale of 
the Negro troops. There is a story told of one 
wounded soldier who leapt up and, dragging a 
useless foot after him, rushed into the trenches 
when he saw an airplane spray the wounded 
Yankees with burning oil. He was killed in his 
mad attempt to take revenge, but he got at least 
one Hun with a good old southern shaving imple- 
men pressed into service for the occasion. 

The terrors of shrapnel, gas, high explosives, 
the grim life in the trench, were made bearable by 
the unfailing good nature of the Negroes, When 
permissible they organized their quartets and sang 
plantation songs. Frank Washington, a wounded 
Negro from South Carolina, told the story of how 
a quartet harmonized on **Massa's in De Cold, 
Cold Ground,** and when the singing was over 
said in unison, **and we alFs gwine be with him 
tonight.** They were awaiting orders to go over 
the top at the time. 

That peculiar regard by the foe for the rules 
of civilized warfare which included the use of 



38 The Negro, Democracy and the War 

explosive bullets, among other atrocities, was 
experienced by the Negro soldiers. To the cer- 
tain knowledge of some of the Negroes at De- 
barkation Hospital No. 3, dozens of these men 
were torn to bits by explosive bullets. Their 
wounded were sprayed with liquid fire by the 
Huns during the fighting on the Champagne 
front. 

James P. McKinney, of Greeneville, S. C, at- 
tached to the Headquarters Company of the 37 I st 
Infantry, was wounded in the right arm by shrap- 
nel in the *'Big Stunt.*' Gas infection set in and 
he was invalided out of service. 

**If there is anything in this war that the Negro 
troops missed,'* said McKinney, telling of his ex- 
periences, **I certainly never heard of it. Explo- 
sive bullets, liquid fire, high explosives, gas, and 
all the horrors of war were certainly turned loose 
on us. But just the same, the Negro troops went 
through it, and when it came to the final test we 
proved ourselves better men than the Germans. 
This was especially true when it came to fighting 
at close quarters. Jerry would not fight with the 
bayonet against the Negro troops, and that was 
all there was to it. The Hun would stand out there 
and pump a machine gun at us — 750 shots to the 
minute, but when we came up close to him he 
would yell *Kamerad!' and hold up his hands. 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 39 

Our officers made us let up on them, too, but the 
Huns did what they pleased to our wounded. 

"The day we went over the top we took our 
positions early in the morning, and waited until 
our barrage had smashed the German defenses 
pretty well. About the time our barrage lifted, 
the Huns sent over a counter-barrage, but we 
w^ent right through it, and up over the slopes com- 
manded by their machine guns. They turned 
loose everything they had to offer, and the storm 
of lead and steel got a lot of our men. Still we 
followed our officers into the devils* trenches. A 
few of the Germans tried to fight with their bay- 
onets, but we could all box pretty well, and box- 
ing works with the bayonet. A few feints, and 
then the death-stroke was the rule. Most of the 
Huns quit as soon as we got at them. Even the 
ones that had been on the machine guns yelled 
for us to spare them. I guess in the excitement 
some of them fared poorly.** 

The narrator*s idea of German military honor 
is the same as that which American soldiers have 
generally brought back. **You can never tell 
w^hich Germans to trust,** declared McKinney. 
**Ordinarily where men surrender, they are 
through, and you can trust them. But the Ger- 
mans who surrendered to us would have auto- 



40 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

matic pistols up their sleeves, and would suddenly 
drop their arms and open fire. I know of one 
squad that was wiped out because a Jerry killed 
one of our doughboys.*' 

Continuing his story of the attack, McKinney 
gives some of the dramatic incidents of the fight- 
ing: 

** While we were advancing we w^orked along 
low and took all available cover against the ma- 
chine-gun fire directed against us. As soon as we 
came within range we opened fire with hand- 
grenades and accounted for the machine-gun 
nests. I saw some of the gunners chained to their 
post. Their barbed wire gave us trouble. Our 
artillery cut it up pretty badly, but still it was a 
pretty strong barrier against the advancing In- 
fantry. When we got tangled up in the wire Jerry 
would play with his rifles. I've seen fellows get 
into a German trench with their uniforms flying 
in shreds. I was wounded in the arm at the big 
stunt. We were attacking along the whole front, 
and the Huns were kept on the hop. While going 
up I was hit and had to fall behind. My arm was 
badly mussed up, but I threw a few grenades here 
and there and I guess I got a few of them. 

**The German artillery fire was accurate. They 
had our ranges down to a science, and while they 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 41 

had good ammunition were hummers. They 
were good marksmen. Why, IVe seen them cut 
a regular ditch along a row of shell-holes to pre- 
vent our troops from using the holes for shelter. 
There was positively nothing they didn't do that 
was horrible. IVe seen them cut loose at a com- 
pany runner with a three-inch artillery. It was a 
funny sight for us, but not for the runner. The 
Huns would drop shells all around him while he 
fled on wings of terror. I never saw them get a 
runner with their artillery fire, but I've seen some 
pretty close shooting. 

**Perhaps the most unusual experience I ever 
had was one day when we were advancing 
toward the German positions. They cut loose 
with their artillery and we were ordered to take 
open order and hunt cover. For two hours we 
were violently shelled, but, thanks to Providence, 
none of us was killed. A few were slightly 
wounded. They mixed high explosives with gas 
and shrapnel. 

"About the hardest luck of the war though," 
concluded McKinney, "fell to the lot of a pal of 
mine. He got a piece of steak somewhere and 
was cooking it — his first bit of steak in months. 
While the meat was broiling the Germans began 
a bombardment. The men put on their masks. 



42 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

but the meat was ruined. That's what I call hard 
luck.** 

Frank Washington, a typical plantation Negro 
from Edgefield, S. C, is another who proved his 
valor under conditions worthy of testing the 
bravery of the bravest. He was attached to Com- 
pany C, 37 1 St Infantry, and received an explosive 
bullet through the arm at Champagne. His story 
is as follows : 

**It was all bad, but the worst was when the 
German airplanes flew low and sprayed the 
wounded with liquid fire. There is no way of 
putting out that liquid flame, and no one can help 
you, because the fire spreads so quickly. It is bad 
enough to be helpless out there, without water or 
friends, but to have a hell fiend fly over and just 
squirt torture over you — ^well, the Indians or sav- 
ages of Africa were not much worse. They were 
not so bad, in fact, for they were savages — the 
Germans are supposed to be civilized. 

**A Hun plane flew^ over when I was wounded, 
but, believe me, when I see that fire coming, I 
sure did some lively hopping around. There 
wasn't going to be any broiled Washingtons if I 
could help it. But some of the mortally wounded 
were burned to death. Those Huns should be 
made to pay for that sort of thing. It ain*t fight- 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 43 

ing, it*s concentrated hell. But we had to tend to 
their wounded, and one of our officers saw that 
we did it. 

**I was over the top in the fighting on Septem- 
ber 29 and 30. We advanced after the usual bar- 
rage had been laid down for us. We went up to 
the Germans, and my platoon found itself under 
the fire of three machine guns. One of these 
guns was in front and jes* runnin* like a mill race. 
The other two kept a-piling into us from the 
flanks, and the losses were mounting. We got 
the front one. Its crew surrendered and we 
stopped. The other guns kept right on going, 
but we got them, too. 

**It was while we were attacking the guns on 
our flanks that I was wounded. Ordinary bullets 
are bad enough, but the one that hit me was an 
explosive bullet. That's me, sir, every time. 
When things is coming, I sure get my share of 
them every time. Yes, sir, I certainly get my 
share. 

** While I was knocked down, it was safer to 
stay down. Those machine guns just kept right 
on pumping — not the ones we captured, but 
others. The wind they stirred up around your 
face just kept you cool all the time. I finally 
started back, but found myself in a German bar- 



44 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

rage. It was shrapnel in front of me and machine 
guns in back of me. I lay right down and had a 
heart to heart chat with St. Peter. I sure never 
did expect to get home again. 

**They say Edgeville ain't much to look at, but 
I would have given two months* pay, including 
allotments, to get back on my farm about then. 
But now that IVe been there and come back I 
kind of feel that I am square with this country. I 
did my share, and I'm glad I did it.*' 

**Yes, sir," interposed McKinney, **we all did 
our share, and we are all glad we did it. This was 
democracy's war. The Negro troops assumed the 
burden of democracy along with the white and 
red troops. We did our share to keep America 
unchained, and we are all proud we did it. We 
are sure, too, that America will not forget.** 

And now the lips of many of our colored boys 
are stilled in death. And yet they call, call on us 
the living that we dedicate ourselves to the high 
resolve that they shall not have died in vain. 

Surely there is no race under the canopy of 
Heaven which has a greater interest in the win- 
ning of this war for democracy than the Negro. 
America has taken such a broad and determined 
stand for world-wide human freedom, and the 
Negro is making such a huge contribution to that 



Colored Soldiers at the Front 45 

gigantic task, that we have every reason to feel 
assured that the nation's attitude toward the 
Negro must undergo a favorable change, and that 
we shall daily come nearer and nearer to the equal 
enjoyment of all the rights, privileges and im- 
munities of citizenship. 

In a telegram sent to the Chicago Colored 
Branch of the National Security League, Secre- 
tary of War Baker said: 

"After all, what is this thing we call 'democ- 
racy* and about which we hear so much nowa- 
days? Surely it is no catch phrase or abstrac- 
tion. It is demonstrating too much vitality for 
that. It is no social distinction or privilege of the 
few, for were it that, it could not win the hearts 
of peoples and make them willing to die for its 
establishment. But it is, it seems to me, a hope 
as wide as the human race, involving men every- 
where — a hope which permits each of us to look 
forward to a time when not only we, but others, 
will have respective rights, founded in the gener- 
osity of nature, and protected by a system of jus- 
tice which will adjust its apparent conflicts. Un- 
der such a hope nations will do justice to nations, 
and men to men.** 

But the American Negro, despised, hated, 
exploited and lynched, still lives on with a 



46 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

loyalty to the American flag, with a racial tenac- 
ity which is unparalleled and a devotion to Je- 
hovah and his laws which constitutes one of the 
sublimest episodes in history. 

No people has dreamed such dreams of the new 
and better day of brotherhood; no people has 
kept so close to the springs of mystic experience, 
and drunk so deep of their living waters of the 
spirit. Especially has no people so suffered and 
striven and sacrificed for freedom. Tried in the 
fire as silver is tried, they have come forth a 
people cleansed in hope, redeemed for the patient 
toil that must still be done ; and 

*'To those who died for liberty 
And did not die in vain! 
They counted light their loss 
That gave the world eternal gain!'* 



CHAPTER V 



Things For Which We Fought 

After four years of warfare carried on with all 
the ingenuity of deviltry and methods of warfare 
which would bring blushes to the cheeks of sav- 
ages, the whole world is now fully aware of what 
the gospel of **force versus right** means, and 
America, whose eyes now are fully opened to 
the truth, is as equally determined as the Allies 
that this spirit of brute force must forever be 
trampled in the dust, never to assert itself again. 

If I thought that the final and total result of this 
vast struggle between Germany and the Allies 
and America, with the millions of dead and 
wounded, the incalculable destruction of property 
and treasure, the indescribable misery of un- 
offending peoples the world around, was to be 
nothing better and higher than the restoration of 
civilization as it existed just before the war broke 
out, I think I would be tempted to question if the 
cause was worth the life of a single soldier in the 

ranks. Universal discontent with our political 

47 



48 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

and industrial achievements was the characteris- 
tic feature of our life before the war, and this dis- 
content was based upon the undisputed fact that 
our civilization, whatever its material triumphs, 
v/as a moral and spiritual failure. It is true that 
knowledge had never been so wide-spread, me- 
chanical efficiency so marvelous, natural re- 
sources so abundant and accessible. It is true 
that political democracy had been born, the laws 
of sanitation discovered, and the science of com- 
munication developed to the point of miracle. In 
a w^ay modern civilization was the most marvel- 
ous the world had ever known. But if you ask 
me if that civilization is worth dying for, I tell 
you **No !** and yet it has been died for by millions 
of noble men in every great country of the mod- 
ern world. 

Not in what civilization was, but in what 
good men desired and had faith that it might 
be made — not in the reality that festered like 
some poisonous growth upon the earth, but m the 
dream that blossomed like a fragrant flower 
within the heart — not in the disorder, struggle 
and bloodshed of the society that bred this war, 
but in the order, co-operation and brotherly ac- 
cord of the new society that shall after this war 
bring in the thousand years of peace — here is to 
be found that thing that is worth dying for. And 



Things For Which We Fought 49 

here, if I mistake not, is the thing for which the 
vast majority of colored men who went into this 
war were willing, nay glad, to lay down their 
lives. They were not fighting to preserve or re- 
store the old order. If the old balances of power, 
the old suspicions, hatreds and prejudices are to 
be revived, then is the sacrifice of the best blood 
of the Negro race a futile and tragic thing. 

But, if out of the chaos of this world conflict a 
new and purer civilization and democracy shall 
emerge, and extend its influence throughout our 
own land, and safeguard the rights and liberties 
of all mankind, regardless of race or color, then 
indeed may we declare that the colored soldiers 
whose lives have been sacrificed upon the bloody 
battlefields of France "shall not have died in 
vain." 

Here in America, we have more upon our 
hands this day than the confession of our sins, 
and the rectification of our inward personal lives. 
We have as well an important part to play in the 
building of a new world, the construction of a 
new society, the bringing in of a new and better 
day. 

The Kingdom of God, of which Jesus talked so 
many years ago, is laid upon our souls as it has 
been laid upon no other generation of Christians 



50 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

since the dreadful day of Calvary. Here are 
those myriads of youthful lives poured out in 
bounteous sacrifice! Here are these millions of 
dead bones sowing the sweet earth as for a divine 
harvest ! Here are the blood and tears and agony, 
not of a nation's, nor of a race's, but of a world's 
despair ! What is it all for? How is it to be made 
worth while ? By the sacrifice of all we have and 
all we are to the Kingdom of God, the new de- 
mocracy of man, the world as Christ dreamed it, 
and as God has had it in His heart through all the 
sad, dark years! 

A little while ago, and every proposal for re- 
form, every crusade for a better world, every 
struggle for social emancipation, w^as met by the 
opposition of * 'interests" — personal interests, 
business interests, political interests, class inter- 
ets, national interests. Many of these opposi- 
tions seemed defensible at that time, but they are 
now defensible no more. Henceforth they stand 
as the sin against the Holy Ghost. 

Thousands of Americans, white and black, 
have died, trusting in us who live to see that the 
world is made safe for democracy. We are 
pledged to their dead bones, and the pledge must 
be redeemed. God grant that America shall take 
the lead; let the influence of our civilization and 
democracy enlighten the whole world. 



Things For Which We Fought 51 

But, the world cannot be made wholly safe for 
democracy while the strong are the oppressors of 
the weak. Universal democracy cannot be mod- 
eled after the American style unless the principle 
of government of the people, by the people, for 
the people is indeed a reality within our own 
borders; unless race discrimination, hatred and 
persecution are forever banished from the land. 
Because true democracy can never exist in a land 
where race and color are a bar to men's political, 
industrial and economical advancement. 

President WoodroW Wilson said in one of his 
speeches since America entered the war : 

**The world must be made safe for democracy. 
Its peace must be planted upon the trusted foun- 
dations of political liberty.** 

And in another address: 

*'It seems to me that this is a time of privilege. 
All our principles, all our hearts, all our purposes, 
are being searched, searched not only by our own 
consciences, but searched by the world; and it is 
time for the people of the states of this country to 
show the world in what political sense they have 
learned the lessons of democracy — that they are 
fighting for democracy because they believe it, 
and that there is no application of democracy 
which they do not believe in.** 



52 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

In the principles set forth in the foregoing quo- 
tations of our President, I heartily concur ; and all 
fair-minded Americans will agree that the world 
will never be wholly safe for democracy until 
America is safe for the Negro. 

On every battlefield where America has drawn 
the sword Negro soldiers have fought, bled and 
died for the perpetuation of the very principles 
enunciated by our President. Millions of us still 
live with an unswerving loyalty to the American 
flag and devotion to the noble cause for which it 
stands, and in this sad epoch in our nation's his- 
tory we believe that America will awaken to a 
realization of its duty toward this ever loyal race, 
and in keeping with our recent teachings of de- 
mocracy to the world, will measure out even- 
handed justice to the Negro. 

The blood that has poured from the Negro's 
veins upon the sunny soil of war-ridden France 
does not represent his initial sacrifice for the 
honor of America. In our great enthusiasm over 
the wonderful achievements of the Negro in this 
war, let us not forget that the first blood of the 
Revolutionary war was drawn from a Negro's 
veins; and upon Boston Commons there stands 
today a monument bearing testimony to the noble 
sacrifice which Crispus Attucks made for a new- 



Things For Which We Fought 53 

born nation that was destined to figure so con- 
spicuously in shaping the destinies of the world. 
Having done his bit in 1 776 to save the col- 
onies from Great Britain, the Negro was called 
upon in the Civil war of 1 86 1 to save the nation 
from itself. The awful events of that horrible 
catastrophe are still fresh in the minds of many 
Americans. The prowess and valor of the Negro 
soldiers in that war are unsurpassed in all the 
annals of warfare. 

Again, we need but mention the 9th and 1 0th 
Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry, and 
every true heart in America must acknowledge 
the fact that in the Spanish-American War the 
characteristic loyalty of the colored soldiers was 
demonstrated beyond peradventure. 

If, after more than 250 years of unselfish devo- 
tion to every movement to advance the cause of 
Americanism (except for the restraint placed 
upon him by slavery) the Negro has not paid the 
price of justice and fair play, equal protection 
under our constitution and laws, freedom from 
unjust discrimination and persecution, then, may 
I ask, what, in the name of everything that is 
righteous, shall the price be? 



CHAPTER VI 



Negro Republics in the War 

Not very far from our Atlantic Coast lies the 
little island of Haiti, a republic governed by 
Negroes, and one of our allies in the war against 
the Central Powers. In all the history of war- 
fare, no braver fighters can be found than these 
Haitian Negroes. 

It was in 1 630 that Europeans began to bring 
their peculiar civilization to that portion of the 
island of Santo Domingo which is now Haiti. 
Pirates and privateers, driven from St. Christo- 
pher by the Spanish, settled in the Island of Tor- 
tuga, off the northwest coast of Haiti, and set up 
a general pirates* headquarters. They would sail 
forth into the Spanish Main, win death or plun- 
der, and return to the mainland of Haiti to drink 
and carouse until their money was all spent. For 
years the war between the pirates and the Spanish 
continued intermittently, but in 1 664 the French 
West India Co. took possession of the settlement. 

Port de Paix was founded soon afterward, but 

54 



Negro Republics in the War 55 

there was constant warfare between the French 
of Haiti and the Spanish of Santo Domingo. 
About this time many slaves from Africa were 
imported, and the first slave uprising took place 
in 1 678, but it was easily put down. 

In 1695 English and Spanish attacked the 
French, Port de Paix was destroyed, and the Eng- 
lish made prisoners of all the men, while the 
Spanish made captives of all the women and 
children. 

Warfare of this kind continued until 1697, 
when peace was established and the French col- 
ony prospered amazingly, growing tobacco, 
cocoa, coffee, indigo and sugar, but slavery was 
growing too fast for enduring prosperity. In 
1754, 14,000 white men owned 172,000 Negro 
slaves. 

It was the French Revolution that started the 
Negro uprising that finally ended with the Ne- 
groes victorious under Toussaint L'Overture, 
former slave, and one of the greatest soldiers the 
world has ever known. 

The French National Assembly granted free- 
dom to the slaves in 1791, but this decree was 
resisted by the white settlers. Oge, a mulatto, 
started a revolution, which was quickly sup- 
pressed, but Jean Francois, another mulatto, 



56 The Negro, Democracy and the War 

raised an insurrection in the north, marching on 
Cape Francais, burning and murdering. Accord- 
ing to Otto Schoenrich, in his book **Santo Do- 
mingo, a Country With a Future,** the whites de- 
feated his force and began, in their turn, an indis- 
criminate slaughter of Negroes. 

The Negroes thereupon rose in every direc- 
tion, and the paradise of the West Indies became 
a hell. 

In 1 793 France went to war with England and 
Spain. The Spanish authorities at Santo Do- 
mingo made overtures to Negro leaders, of whom 
a number entered the Spanish service as officers 
of high rank, among them was Toussaint L'Over- 
ture, who later showed remarkable military abil- 
ity and administrative qualities. The French gov- 
ernment sent commissioners to the colony, whose 
tactless handling of a difficult situation fanned the 
flames of civil war. 

But the French persuaded Toussaint to aban- 
don the Spanish and help defeat the English. He 
was made general-in-chief of the French forces 
and drove the English from the island in 1 798, 
after the English had spent $100,000,000, and 
lost 45,000 lives. Although Toussaint became 
embittered against the whites, he was able to keep 
order among the Negroes until his death. They 



Negro Republics in the War 57 

were hostile to the United States until it abolished 
slavery. Haiti is the strongest Negro republic in 
the world. The men are fearless, and with tradi- 
tions of military valor. It was submarine out- 
rages that caused Haiti to declare war against 
Germany. 

Passing notice should also be given to the 
Negro Republic of Liberia, which declared war 
on Germany soon after the United States entered 
the conflict. Liberia is situated in Africa, on the 
southwestern coast of Upper Guinea (the Grain 
Coast) between Sierra Leone and the French set- 
tlements of the Ivory Coast. It has between 500 
and 600 miles of coast line, an average extent 
inland of 200 miles. The inhabitants are de- 
scendants of Afro-American settlers from the 
United States. The Republic of Liberia was 
founded in 1821 by the American Colonization 
Society, in treaty w^ith native African princes, as 
a colony for emancipated Negroes. In 1847 it 
was recognized as an independent state. 

Thus we see that the activity of the Negro in 
this war has not been confined to us here in 
America, but everywhere Negroes have done 
their bit to save the world from the throes of 
militarism. These black republics have demon- 
strated to the world their capacity for self-gov- 



58 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

ernment. While Haiti has frequently suffered 
the misfortune of insurrections, yet, these in- 
stances almost without exception have been due 
to the interference of outside influences. 



CHAPTER VII 



The War Is Won 

And now, as we look into the eastern horizon, 
beneath the vanishing clouds of war, we see, em- 
blazoned in letters of gold the word Victory ! The 
deed is done; the most glorious victory in the 
history of the w^orld has been won. The world 
has found brotherhood ; the w^orld has found God. 
No one nation, race or creed stands foremost in 
the winning of this war. White, black, yellow 
and red — ^Jew and Gentile — Catholic and Protest- 
ant, have given their all for humanity and democ- 
racy, and through a co-operation of races un- 
dreamed of in all the world's history, comes 
victory. 

The spirit of brotherhood on the blood-soaked 
fields of France, over here in factory and home, 
has done more than anything else toward attun- 
ing the world to a single heart-throb for a victory 
that shall redound to the lasting benefit and glory 
of all humanity. 

The colored people of the United States realize 

59 



60 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

what all this means to them and, as they bore 
their part of the burden of war, so will they per- 
form their part of the great task of building up to 
the level of our new found ideals and blood- 
bought visions of brotherhood. 

The contest between democracy and autocracy 
is as old as the wars between the Greek cities and 
the Persian kings, Darius and Xerxes, and has 
come down through all the history of England 
and France. But free nations have shown that, 
given a little time, they could so organize and so 
arm themselves as to beat back the forces of the 
long prepared and perfectly organized military 
autocracies, and today we rejoice that the great 
task which was before the world in its fight 
against Teuton military autocracy has been suc- 
cessfully accomplished. 

The sacrifices of war are over, but the sacrifices 
of peace are only now to begin. These are sacri- 
fices that will put behind us selfishness, greed and 
a willingness to exploit the souls and the bodies 
of other men. These are sacrifices that will turn 
our minds away from bigness, from numbers, 
from races and from accumulations, to character, 
to quality and to spiritual power. We should no 
longer think of the size of a nation, or the color of 
a race, but of free nations and races, joyfully 



The War is Won 61 

competing together in service to mankind and in 
revelation of new and unsuspected powers of 
helpfulness and progress. 

America, through its sacrificial devotion, has 
received a new view^ of fair play and devotion. 
As brothers we fought in the w^ar; as brothers 
we died in battle, and now, let us live as brothers 
in peace, and in our relations with each other in 
this country, let us bow to no ideal that lacks the 
fullness of justice. 

Our boys will soon be back from **over there." 
To thousands of Negro families that knowledge 
brings supreme joy. Soon the victorious hosts of 
democracy will march along the streets of our big 
cities to receive the homage of grateful multi- 
tudes. Our brothers and sons who have planted 
democracy among millions of people who have 
been ground under the ruthless heel of militarism, 
are coming home. Out of the mud of trenches, 
away from the noise of cannon, away from the 
barbed wire entanglements of Argonne Forest. 
Having shared the glories of Cantigny and Seich- 
prey; of Chateau-Thierry and the Vesle; of St. 
Mihiel and Cambrai, our boys are coming home. 

They went abroad, many of them in their most 
impressionable years. They went to lands of 
rich, deep national culture, and wrhen they come 



62 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

home they are going to view their country, not as 
they viewed it before, but w^ith eyes wide open, 
unembarrassed and unafraid. They will have 
found the human race to be one, whatever the 
shade of the skin or the inflection of the tongue. 
Indeed, there will be a great revival when the 
thousands of Negro soldiers return and are again 
diffused through the wide structure of nearly 
twelve million Negroes whom they left behind. 

*Trom out the west; from o'er the seas, 

The sons of liberty arrive. 
And now unfurled, full in the breeze, 

The glorious flag of freedom flies. 
On *No Man's Land' the Hunnish hordes 

In frantic haste turn homeward all ; 
With cause accursed, while o'er Berlin 

The darkening shadows fall." 

Little do we in America know of the hardships 
endured by these men, in trenches soaked with 
rain and being bombarded with shells. We know 
nothing of the pangs of hunger and the agony 
that our wounded soldiers have suffered. We 
have not seen the wreckage of the battlefield. 
We have had our meatless and wheatless days; 
we have given money in abundance, but, after all, 
how small are the sacrifices we have made when 



The War is Won 63 

we compare them with all that these men have 
given for civilization. 

And now that the war is over, let us not feel 
that there is no longer any need for sacrifice on 
our part. The empty sleeve and the crutch which 
we now begin to see in public places tell their 
own sad story. 

We must not disappoint these men. They 
must be aided economically and industrially, and 
they and their children after them must have tne 
chance which they have so dearly bought. It is 
to be hoped that there is not a Negro in America 
who will not willingly bear his part of the burden 
brought home to us by these unfortunate veterans 
of war. They have justified for our race the con- 
fidence and respect of the civilized world. The 
qualities they have demonstrated, the character 
they have shown, the concentration of purpose 
and the capacity for achievement which they have 
been able to demonstrate in that time of critical 
stress, tend to refute the arguments of those who 
hold that it is unwise to accord the Negro the 
highest privileges of American citizenship. 

The things for which the Negro has stood and 
is standing and the principles he has battled for 
in season and out of season, have formed no in- 
considerable part of the making of the virility of 



64 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

the American people. But let us not stop here. 
In the name of all that is pure and noble; in the 
name of 12,000,000 souls pleading for justice; 
in the name of humanity and destiny, I appeal to 
this liberty-loving, fearless race of ours to go on- 
ward and forward and upward to the achievement 
of grand and glorious things. 

American history will hereafter tell how in 
1917 the American people with remarkable 
unanimity went into a ferocious war of European 
origin in the hope and expectation of putting 
down divine right government, secret diplomacy 
and militarism; of making justice and kindness 
the governing principles in international relations, 
and of promoting among the masses of mankind 
the kind of liberty under law w^hich they had 
themselves long enjoyed. In contributing to the 
vigorous and successful prosecution of this war 
they spent their money like water, upset their in^ 
dustries and their habits of life, laid on their pos- 
terity an immense burden of debt, and put at risk 
the lives of millions of their sons and daughters. 
At the same time they gave huge sums of money 
to relieve the miseries and woes which war now 
entails on combatants and non-combatants alike. 
Glorious tributes will be paid to brave American 
soldiers who have won medals of distinction from 



The War is Won 65 

England and France and rapid promotion in our 
army. 

But what will history tell of those brave col- 
ored soldiers who faced death all along the line of 
the western front? Let us hope that in this re- 
spect previous histories of American wars will not 
be regarded as precedents to guide writers of the 
history of this great war. It wll be a source of 
considerable inspiration to our race to know that 
the facts concerning the part the Negro played in 
this war will not be suppressed, and that he will 
be fairly treated by historians of this world- 
conflict. 

This war, more than anything else, has taught 
us that we are inseparably linked together here in 
America. Color lines and class distinctions are 
easily eflFaced in times of war. Then why so 
prominent in times of peace? The Negro fought 
the same battles, shed the same blood, died the 
same death as the white man. Why not receive 
the same honors ? The test of the worthiness of a 
favored race is its willingness to reach down and 
lift up a less favored people. Give the Negro an 
equal chance ; give him the same chance to live in 
peace that he has been given to fight in war, and 
just as he has honored his country in times of 
war, so w^ill he be true to our highest national 
ideals in the years of peace to come. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 

Shall America be safe for democracy ? This is 
the burning question that touches the hearts of 
12,000,000 Negroes. Can our democracy be 
more than a travesty when it excludes millions of 
our citizens? Alabama needs 75,000 ballots to 
elect ten Congressmen. Minnesota needs 300,- 
000. Is this democracy? 350,000 voters in the 
South have as much political power as 1 ,500,000 
voters in New York State. Is this democracy? 
Georgia and New Jersey have the same vote for 
President; 80,000 ballots are cast in Georgia, 
while New Jersey cast 430,000. Is this democ- 
racy? No! "Taxation without representation is 
tyranny,*' not democracy. 

Three thousand Negroes fought for American 
independence under George Washington; 1 2,000 
of us fought with Jackson at New Orleans ; 200,- 
000 Negro soldiers fought to save the Union in 
the Civil War; 10,000 of us fought in the Span- 
ish-American War; Negro soldiers were among 

66 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 67 

the first to land in France with General Pershing, 
300,000 of them having crossed the ocean before 
the signing of the armistice. 

We have in the United States 1 ,000,000 Negro 
farmers, 30,000 carpenters, 30,000 clergymen, 
12,000 brick and stone masons, 30,000 teachers, 
3,000 physicians; we own 250,000 farms with 
20,000,000 acres of land worth $500,000,000; 
we have church property worth $76,000,000; we 
have 60,000 iron and steel workers and 20,000 
slaughter and packing-house operators. 

And after all this, shall the Negro have no 
partnership in the great joy of a liberated world? 
Shall millions of "the least of these my brethren*' 
be excluded from participation in that democracy 
for which the world is said to have been made 
safe? 

We ask no redress for the wrongs that have 
been perpetrated upon us, but a cessation of 
those wrongs. Ever since the Negro has dared 
to raise his voice in his own behalf, and in some 
cases in the face of threats of death or imprison- 
ment, he has pleaded that those principles of 
justice be applied to him which are so essential 
to a pure democracy, and which all other races in 
America enjoy without limitation. And what has 
been the result? Disfranchisement, Jim-Crow- 



68 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

ism, discrimination ever3rwhere. In the past 31 
years 2,867 Negroes have been lynched in the 
United States. But let us get down to more con- 
crete facts upon the subject of lynching: 

In the year 1918, 58 Negroes were lynched, 
five of them being women. The offenses charged 
were : alleged complicity in murder, 1 4 ; murder, 
7; charged with threats to kill, 6; charged with 
rape, 1 ; charged with attempted rape, 6 ; alleged 
participation in fight about alleged hog stealing, 
3; killing officer of the law, 2; being intimate 
with a woman, 1 ; assisting man charged with 
murder to escape, 1 ; robbing house and frighten- 
ing women, 1 ; killing man in dispute about auto- 
mobile repairs, 1 ; making unwise remarks, 1 ; 
making unruly remarks, 1 ; killing a landlord in 
dispute over a farm contract, 1 ; assault with in- 
tent to murder, 1 ; wounding another, 1 ; robbery 
and resisting arrest, 1 . 

The states in w^hich lynching occurred and the 
number of Negroes lynched in each state are as 
follows : 

Alabama, 3; Arkansas, 2; California, 1 ; Flor- 
ida, 2 ; Georgia, 1 6 ; Illinois, 1 ; Kentucky, 1 ; 
Louisiana, 8; Mississippi, 5; North Carolina, 2; 
Oklahoma, 1 ; South Carolina, 1 ; Tennessee, 4; 
Texas, 9 ; Virginia, 1 ; Wyoming, 1 ; 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 69 

To make this record of lynchings in the United 
States more complete, it should be stated that 4 
white men were also victims. 

Oh, Cain, where is Abel, thy brother? 

For the period of the war the Negro put aside 
his grievances, and determined to make a su- 
preme sacrifice for the honor of his country and 
the peace of the world. But he could not help 
carrying with him across the mighty deep a con- 
sciousness of the awful wrongs he had suffered, 
and which his brother at home must suffer while 
he was in France occupying positions where his 
life would be imperiled by his duties, and where 
the grim shadow of death might forever obscure 
the beautiful sunshine of life; this, I say, for the 
honor of a country in which lynching, jim-crow- 
ism and race discrimination are a part of the un- 
written law. 

The glorious reception which the Negro soldiers 
found awaiting them as they entered France was 
indeed a soothing balm for their souls. Many 
had come directly from the South, and the lessons 
of their lives had taught them that freedom was 
for the white man, and the part which they should 
always play in the great drama of life was that of 
service. But when they were received with open 
arms by the generous people of France, whose 



70 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

democratic institutions are supported by an obe- 
dient spirit of the people, these Negroes were 
doubly assured that if this were democracy, surely 
they had made no mistake in deciding that it was 
worth fighting for. They found that in France 
democracy was more than statutes, or constitu- 
tions — it was a national idealism that guided the 
people in their daily intercourse. They had made 
a dangerous journey from a land where they were 
hated by many and admired by few^, but never- 
theless a land which they dearly loved. Loved 
it because it was their home, because they had 
helped make it what it is, and because they were 
inspired by their faith in the superiority of God*s 
law over that of man, and that in process of time 
the brotherhood of man would be a guiding force 
in America. 

At first it was difficult for some of these colored 
soldiers to reconcile themselves to this new situ- 
ation, a real democracy. They could not under- 
stand how they could be respected for their man- 
hood on one side of the Atlantic, and hated on 
the other side because they were black, but as 
I have said in the beginning, the ability of the 
Negro to adapt himself to new conditions is one 
of his chief characteristics. They soon learned 
that in France the measure of a man's worth is 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 71 

not color, but character; and the comparison 
-which they made was not at all flattering to 
America. Elijah could not have been filled with 
more enthusiasm w^hen he entered the gates of 
Heaven than w^ere these Negro soldiers when they 
w^ere embraced by the people of France. 

The thing that has irritated the colored soldier 
most is his consciousness that after having helped 
to win the war for the freedom of the world, he 
must return home to resume the fight for his own 
freedom. But he is coming home, and he will 
bring with him new hopes, fresh determination 
and a broader vision of his rights and obligations 
as an American citizen. He will tell us of his 
brilliant defense in the battle of Chateau Thierry, 
under the leadership of black officers ; he will tell 
us of the terrific fighting he saw in the struggle 
of Argonne; he will tell us that in the last hour 
before the signing of the armistice the 365th, a 
Negro Infantry, were the nearest American sol- 
diers to the Rhine; he will tell us that of all the 
Allied troops the 367th, a Negro Infantry, upon 
the cessation of hostilities, were the nearest troops 
to Metz. 

What shall the answer be when these brave 
boys give such a glowing account of their stew- 
ardship? Shall it be a lynching in Georgia, or 



11 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

Ohio? Shall it be a tightening of the color line, 
or the extension of jim-crowism in the North? 
Shall it be the increase of segregation of Negroes 
in the filthiest districts of the large cities of the 
United States? 

Or shall it be a sincere welcome home to 
America's faithful black sons, with a conscien- 
tious assurance that they shall receive a just share 
in America's democracy, in recognition of their 
inalienable and constitutional rights, and in ap- 
preciation of the part they played in saving the 
sacred institution of democracy to all the world? 

It is now more than half a century since the 
great Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion. To God and the several human agencies 
he employed in accomplishing this result, the 
colored man is profoundly grateful and indebted. 
What man of color who knows of the struggles 
that the good people of the North had to en- 
counter in their efforts to save the Union, to rid 
the nation of that fierce monster, human slavery, 
to secure to the freedmen the same measure of 
freedom vouchsafed other people of the United 
States, to transform social and political pariahs 
into citizens of a nation that was destined to be- 
come the greatest republic that the world has ever 
known, to secure these blessings by appropriate 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 73 

amendments to the Constitution, and to insure 
by further legislation the full enjoyment of those 
rights, what colored man can afford to be un- 
thankful, what colored man dare refuse his sup- 
port to every movement for the advancement of 
the cause of America ? The Negro has promised 
to be faithful to America's institutions, and he 
will be true to his word. 

The Negro believes that if castigation is to be 
resorted to, it must be visited upon disobedient 
or reckless members of the household. Instead 
of destroying the house by fire because vermin 
have entered and are flourishing therein, the 
rivers of public discontent and civic righteous- 
ness must be let into it and the pests swept there- 
from. But, by all means, the house must be 
preserved ! 

It is true, though, that we are often forced to 
use the language of that immortal bard of the 
race, Mr. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, who exclaimed : 

"With citizenship discredited and scorned, with 
violated homes and long unheeded prayers, with 
bleeding hands, still sore and smarting from long 
beating at the door of opportunity, we raise our 
voices and sing, *My Country, *tis of Thee.* We 
shout and sing, while from the four points of the 
compass comes our brothers* unavailing cry.*' 



74 The Negro, Demck:racy and The War 

And yet we celebrate with great enthusiasm the 
Declaration of Independence. 

We cannot forget the living words of Patrick 
Henry, that fired the hearts of the American 
patriots, when he said, **Give me liberty or give 
me death.** And we are not unmindful of the 
fact that it was taxation without representation 
that brought on the war in America between the 
colonists and the mother country. Any mons- 
trous piece of inconsistency and injustice of this 
kind will of necessity cause restlessness and re- 
volt in any intelligent people, and the evil will 
be intensified exactly in proportion to the under- 
standing of the wronged and outraged citizens. 

It is gratifying to note, however, the wonderful 
forbearance of the colored people in all these 
wrongs and outrages; it is not only proverbial 
with them to forbear, but this characteristic of 
the race is one of the chief contributing causes of 
its remarkable growth and wonderful develop- 
ments in education, industry, refinement, politi- 
cal and moral power. 

Our forbearance does not indicate ignorance of 
the value of political and civil liberty, for we 
know the importance of both. Every citizen of a 
republic like ours knows that the possession of 
political liberty is unquestionably a right of a 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 75 

community, and citizens may, with perfect rea- 
son, exact it even of governments which actually 
govern well. It is the duty of a government, if 
it would discharge its duties as it should, **to ac- 
cumulate, to the utmost, securities for beneficial 
measures hereafter.*' Every average American 
citizen, white or black, knows that to enjoy per- 
fect political liberty, he must possess the ballot, 
and to make the right use of it, that his liberty 
might be secured. The colored people know that 
**political liberty is not a matter that admits of 
certain conclusions from theoretical reasoning; it 
is a question of facts; a question to be decided, 
like questions of philosophy, by reasoning found- 
ed upon experience.'* 

As a race we have been wronged and outraged 
in that our political liberty has been and is now 
interfered with, hence our civil liberty is not what 
the constitution guarantees, and, therefore, our 
complaint, though unheeded is well founded, and 
the American people know that we know it. But, 
again, we know that our peculiar political situa- 
tion has created in us a strong desire to exercise 
our full political power. We know also that a 
reasonable desire constitutes a claim that is not 
only worthy of a favorable consideration, but an 



76 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

honest and impartial investigation; and if the 
thing desired is superior to the thing causing the 
complaint, then it is the pledged duty of the gov- 
ernment to remove the cause of the disturbance, 
and give satisfaction to the dissatisfied. A dis- 
satisfied community of people is an uncertain 
quantity, and as a race we are dissatisfied, *'and 
in whatever degree a people are not satisfied, in 
the same degree civil government," all things 
being equal, "does not effect its proper ends. To 
deny satisfaction to a reasonable people without 
showing a good reason, is to withhold from them 
the due portion of civil liberty.'* 

Furthermore no solution of difficulties grow- 
ing out of the relations of two races is going to 
be permanent and satisfactory unless both have 
made contributions to it. For no arbitrary solu- 
tion, imposed from without, is likely to be right, 
or tolerated. 

It was probably this thought that prompted our 
President, Woodrow Wilson, on the 1 6th day of 
August, 1918, to issue this direct appeal to the 
American people in behalf of law and order : 

**There have been many lynchings, and every 
one of them has been a blow at the heart of or- 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 11 

dered law and humane justice. No man who 
loves America, no man who really cares for her 
fame and honor and character, or who is truly 
loyal to her institutions, can justify mob action 
while the courts of justice are open and the gov- 
ernments of the states and the nation are ready 
and able to do their duty. How shall we com- 
mend democracy to the acceptance of other 
peoples if we disgrace our own by proving that 
it is after all no protection to the weak. Every 
mob contributes to German lies about the United 
States what her most gifted liars cannot improve 
upon by way of calumny." 

He called upon the governors of all the states, 
upon the law officers of every community in the 
United States, and above all upon the men and 
women of every community who revere Amer- 
ica, to make an end of this disgraceful evil. 

In conclusion, he said: 

**I can never accept any man as a champion of 
liberty, either for ourselves or for the world, who 
does not reverence and obey the laws of our own 
beloved land, whose laws we ourselves have 
made. He has adopted the standards of the 
enemies of his country, whom he affects to 
despise." 



78 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

White and black blood have mingled upon the 
battlefields where the freedom and honor of our 
country was at stake; together we have built up 
a great civilization, and present to the world a 
spectacle that represents itself as a vast democ- 
racy living in freedom, with no other ruler but 
ourselves; the populace of the old monarchies 
and despotisms have heard of our liberty, and 
millions of them have crossed the ocean to enjoy 
it. America was the hope of mankind, and yet, 
what do we see? Millions of Negroes who have 
never shared the blessings of that democracy 
which has made America foremost among all the 
nations of the world. It is a horrible sight to see, 
and an ominous failure to confess ; for if America 
fails in her attempt at democracy, where is there 
any national hope that the cause of civil and po- 
litical freedom can ever succeed ? 

Nowhere can the experiment be tried under 
conditions so favorable. But, if, after all, the 
dreams of American democracy shall not be fully 
realized, surely it shall be a sign that God had no 
part in our attempt. * 'Except the Lord build the 
city, they labor in vain who build it. It had all 
been a vast mistake and delusion from the begin- 
ning. Let us call back our kings and czars, and 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 79 

surrender our liberty and equality. Man is not 
able to govern himself. Let Moses lead the 
Israelites back to Pharoah, and cast the tablets of 
the Divine Law into the depths of the Red Sea. 
The Pillar of Cloud by day, of Fire by night, was 
but a mirage and a mockery; and a few selfish 
tyrants shall have dominion oyer many helpless 
slaves.** 

In stating the case of the American Negro it 
would, indeed, be ungrateful not to acknowledge 
the race's appreciation of thousands of the white 
race who have ever been w^illing to support every 
movement for the Negro's advancement. Negro 
schools, churches, hospitals, Young Men*s Chris- 
tian Associations and other institutions owe their 
very existence, in many cases, to benefits be- 
stowed upon them by white people throughout 
the nation. That many institutions are obliged 
to depend upon public contributions for their 
support and maintenance is due to the very na- 
ture of the institutions. This is true of institu- 
tions among all peoples. 

But the undemocratic spirit of the people, 
especially in the South, has made necessary the 
establishment of many institutions among Ne- 
groes. If the states of the South would provide 



80 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

for the education of their boys and girls, regard- 
less of color or race ; if the state legislatures would 
make the same provision for the education of 
Negro citizens as is made for white aliens, scores 
of schools established by Negroes, and depending 
upon gratuities for their support, would be un- 
necessary. 

Give the Negro a man's chance; give him an 
equal opportunity, and he will demonstrate his 
worthiness of all the privileges that a free people 
ever enjoyed in a democracy. This course is dic- 
tated no less by equity than by the truest interests 
of the whole American people. 

The Philadelphia Public Ledger, recently 
speaking of the condition of the Negro, said : 

**The nation, and every citizen of it, assumed 
a direct responsibility for the Negro when he was 
emancipated. Out of indefensible riots some 
good will come if earnest, capable leaders are 
made to feel the burden of helpfulness which 
rests on them. The Negro should not be driven 
back ; he should be aided in fitting himself to the 
new conditions he meets in the North. We 
should regard it as a national misfortune if preju- 
dice at this crucial time should stifle the Negro's 
ambition and tear the heart out of a race which 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 81 

has just begun to realize its possibilities and its 
future.** 

The class of Negroes that were recruited for in- 
dustrial work in the North during the war is, un- 
fortunately, not the best. They are not versed 
in the vernacular of labor. They are not class 
conscious, and they exasperate men who are. 
Race riots in the North are in origin, often indus- 
trial riots. But these people are driven north- 
ward by the intolerable conditions that exist in 
the South. The Negro is not a roaming people. 
If the Negroes of the South enjoyed conditions of 
living, facilities for education, and fair treatment, 
as the whites enjoy, no attraction in the North 
could induce them to leave the homes to which 
they are attached. 

Ever since the days of slavery the whites of the 
South have feared the educated Negro; and yet, 
events have proved that it is the uneducated, and 
not the educated, Negro who is more to be feared. 
Perhaps the Governor of Georgia was conscious 
of this fact when, during his recent inauguration, 
he intimated that the situation was serious, and 
that he proposed to meet it, **not by reducing 
school facilities for Negroes, but by increasing 
those school facilities,** thereby capitalizing ein 
enormous dormant asset. 



82 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

But on all sides the Negro finds organized 
efforts to keep him down ; and yet he is so deter- 
mined to rise that he will not stay where he is 
placed, but persists in going where and doing 
what he knows he has a natural and constitu- 
tional right to do, East St. Louis and Chester 
massacres to the contrary notwithstanding. 

A striking illustration of what the labor unions 
mean to the industrial efforts of the Negro will be 
found in the E^st St. Louis massacre and the 
causes that brought it about. 

On the 2nd of July, 1917, East St. Louis, 111., 
added a foul page to the world's history of mas- 
sacres. A mob of white men, women and chil- 
dren burned and destroyed $400,000 worth of 
property belonging to both whites and blacks; 
drove 6,000 Negroes from their homes, and de- 
liberately murdered by shooting, burning and 
hanging, between one and two hundred Negro 
men, women and children. An impartial investi- 
gation discloses the fact that the cause of this riot 
was the hostility of the white labor unions toward 
Negro laborers who had recently come from the 
South. 

The following is a copy of a letter sent to the 
members of the ''Central Trades and Labor 
Union,** which speaks for itself: 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 83 

"East St. Louis, III., 
May 23, 1917. 
**To the Delegates to the Central Trades and 

Labor Union : 
* 'Greeting: 

**The immigration of the Southern Negro into 
our city for the past eight months has reached the 
point where drastic action must be taken if we 
intend to work and live peaceably in this com- 
munity. 

**Since this influx of undesirable Negroes has 
started no less than ten thousand have come into 
this locality. 

"These men are being used to the detriment of 
our white citizens by some of the capitalists and 
a few of the real estate owners. 

**On next Monday evening the entire body of 
delegates to the Central Trades and Labor Unions 
will call upon the Mayor and City Council and 
demand that they take some action to retard this 
growing menace and also devise a way to get rid 
of a certain portion of those w^ho are already here, 

"This is not a protest against the Negro who 
has been a long resident of East St. Louis and is a 
law-abiding citizen. 

"We earnestly request that you be in attend- 



84 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

ance on next Monday evening at 8:00 o'clock, at 
137 Collinsville Avenue, where we will meet and 
then go to the City Hall. 

*This is more important than any local meet- 
ing, so be sure you are there. 

**Fraternally, 

* 'Central Trades & Labor Union, 
*'Edw. F. Mason, SecV-*' 

It is not necessary to recite here the awful de- 
tails of the horrible slaughter of Negroes in East 
St. Louis that followed the writing of the fore- 
going letter. The facts are still fresh in the minds 
of Negroes all over the land, and we know that 
they did take ''drastic action,** and that they did 
"get rid of a certain portion of those** who were 
already there. 

But brief reference will be made to a statement 
of an eye-witness, Carlos F. Hurd, published 
July 3, 1918, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, of 
which he was a staff-reporter : 

"A Negro, his head laid open by a great stone- 
cut, had been dragged to the mouth of the alley 
on Fourth Street and a small rope was being put 
about his neck. There was joking comment on 
the weakness of the rope, and everyone was pre- 
pared for what happened when it was pulled over 
a projecting cable box, a short distance up the 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 85 

pole. It broke, letting the Negro tumble back on 
his knees, and causing one of the men who was 
pulling on it to sprawl on the pavement. 

**An old man, with a cap like those worn by 
street car conductors, but showing no badge of 
car service, came out of his house to protest. 
*Don't you hang that man on this street,' he 
shouted, *I dare you to.' He was pushed angrily 
away and a rope, obviously strong enough for its 
purpose, w^as brought. 

* 'Right here I saw the most sickening incident 
of the evening. To put the rope around the 
Negro's neck, one of the lynchers stuck his fin- 
gers inside the gaping scalp and lifted the Negro's 
head by it, literally bathing his hand in the man's 
blood. 

***Get hold, and pull for East St, Louis,* called 
a man with a black coat and a new straw hat, as 
he seized the other end of the rope. The rope 
was long, but not too long for the number of 
hands that grasped it, and this time the Negro 
was lifted to a height of about seven feet from the 
ground. The body was left hanging there." 

If the cruelties which the German soldiers in- 
flicted upon the Belgians, or the massacre of the 
Armenians by the Turks, surpass this East St. 
Louis horror, then may I ask, in what respect ? 



86 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

How can the leaders of our civilization look 
back upon nearly 3,000 black men and women 
lynched during the past 3 1 years, and then invite 
other nations of the civilized world to emulate 
the virtues of American democracy? 

Not long after the East St. Louis race war 
15,000 Negroes marched through the streets of 
New York City in silent protest against recent 
race riots. The parade formed in Fifth Avenue 
and marched from Fifty-seventh Street to Madi- 
son Square. 

Placards carried by Boy Scouts, aged men and 
by women and children, explained the purpose of 
the demonstration. 

During the progress of the march circulars 
were distributed among the crowds telling of the 
purpose which brought the Negroes together. 
Under the caption, *'Why do we march?** the cir- 
cular read, in part, as follows : 

**We march because by the grace of God and 
the force of truth the dangerous, hampering walls 
of prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall. 

**We march because we want to make impos- 
sible a repetition of Waco, Memphis, and East St. 
Louis by arousing the conscience of the country, 
and to bring the murderers of our brothers, sisters 
and innocent children to justice. 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 87 

**We march because we deem it a crime to be 
silent in the face of such barbaric acts. 

**We march because we are thoroughly op- 
posed to Jim Crow cars, etc., segregation, dis- 
crimination, disfranchisement, lynching, and the 
host of evils that are forced on us. It is time that 
the spirit of Christ should be manifested in the 
making and execution of the laws. 

**We march because we want our children to 
live in a better land and enjoy fairer conditions 
than have fallen to our lot. 

*'We march in memory of our butchered dead, 
the massacre of honest toilers who were remov- 
ing the reproach of laziness and thriftlessness 
hurled at the entire race. They died to prove our 
worthiness to live. We live in spite of death 
shadowing us and ours. We prosper in the face 
of the most unwarranted and illegal oppression. 

**We march because the growing conscious- 
ness and solidarity of race, coupled with sorrow 
and discrimination, have made us one; a union 
that may never be dissolved in spite of the shal- 
low-brained agitators, scheming pundits and po- 
litical tricksters who secure a fleeting popularity 
and uncertain financial support by promoting the 
disunion of a people who ought to consider them- 
selves one.** 



88 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

It is inconceivable that in a democracy such as 
ours there should ever be an occasion for such a 
united demonstration against lawlessness as that 
above referred to. Lynching after lynching has 
occurred with scarcely any protest being made by 
the colored people of the United States, and cer- 
tainly little or no effort made by those responsible 
for law and order to apprehend and punish the 
culprits. 

But with the number of lynchings steadily in- 
creasing, and the crimes of the mob spreading 
like a cancer all over the land, the Negro had 
reason to be alarmed, lest his silence might be 
construed as acquiescence. 

If the time is to come when the American 
people shall reassert their faith in that clause of 
the Declaration of Independence which says, 
**We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and 
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness," surely it ought not to be in the 
distant future. 

But meanwhile the southern mob is northward 
bound, without conscience or soul, but with im- 
punity, it carries on its work of destruction of 
human life. 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 89 

As I protest against the persecution of the 
Negro race I am not unconscious of the fact that 
we have among us in all parts of the United 
States a lawless element whose sins we do not 
condone. But is this not true of all peoples? 
Who can say to what extent lawlessness among 
Negroes would decrease if the southern states 
guarded the interests of the black boys and girls 
as they do those of the white race? Is not intel- 
lectual and moral uplift as essential in the process 
of crime elimination among Negroes as it is 
among w^hites? If the South would open the 
doors of opportunity to the Negro, and assure 
him that hereafter character and intelligence shall 
be the basis upon which men shall be judged, and 
that in the dispensation of justice race or color 
shall not prevent any man from receiving his full 
measure, the colored people would receive an in- 
centive and would aspire to standards which 
many have hitherto considered unattainable. 

The attitude of the South toward the Negro 
manifests itself in the chain-gang, convict labor 
cruelty, Jim Crow cars, special legislation de- 
signed to reach and restrict the freedom and liber- 
ties of the black man. It is the same South which, 
when the Confederacy was facing death, author- 
ized through its Congress, the enlistment of 300,- 



90 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

000 slaves as soldiers, **with the same rations, 
clothing and pay as other troops,** but with the 
proviso that * 'nothing in this act shall be con- 
strued to authorize a change in the relation of said 
slaves.** As slaves they were to fight for slavery, 
and then to be remanded to their masters. 

Though the ground was quaking, and hope 
itself was fleeing, the Confederacy piteously 
pleaded for the help of its slaves, but would not 
consent to diminish by the smallest fraction, the 
number of its chained and bound. No wonder 
that after such a spectacle, the Confederacy went 
down amid the acclaim of all the nations of the 
earth, and that **its last days lacked dignity and 
wholly failed to inspire pity." 

The present day plea of the South for Anglo- 
Saxon dominance, for a studied nullification of, 
or for a repeal of certain amendments to the Con- 
stitution of the United States, is no more than the 
echo of strident voices heard many years ago, de- 
manding state sovereignty. 

Rev. Dr. Dean Richard Babbitt, speaking sev- 
eral years ago of the South in relation to the 
Negro, said: 

**It was feudal in its ideas and impulses before 
the Civil War; it is feudal today in all its ideas. 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 91 

impulses, legislation and methods pertaining to 
the Negro. It is trying to shut the door of oppor- 
tunity in the face of the black man on grounds of 
race and color. It is rapidly robbing the Negroes 
by a deliberate system, of not only political rights, 
but inalienable natural rights, the rights of life, 
liberty and happiness.** 

There is real slavery of the Negro in parts of 
the South today, only the poor black man or 
woman is not sold from the auction block, but 
from the bench of the judge in collusion with 
slave buyers. What is meant by the slave stock- 
ades, the tracking blood-hounds, and the lash 
among the pine woods of Georgia?, They mean 
that slavery is in existence today. 

The Civil War, we are given to understand, 
forever abolished slavery and demonstrated 
clearly that the United States was a nation and 
not a confederacy; yet we have the most open 
violations of the 1 3th, 1 4th and 1 5th amend- 
ments to the Constitution. The 1 4th amendment 
settled the Negro's citizenship, and the 1 5th 
settled his right to vote, and with this staring the 
South in the face, they disfranchised the Negro 
in several states. It has become so serious that 
we are now face to face with the problem forced 



92 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

upon the country by the men who fired upon the 
flag at Sumter. 

How shall the nation act in this matter? Their 
unconstitutional nullification should be met by a 
constitutional nullification. Congress should re- 
fuse all representatives elected by those districts 
which nullified these three amendments seats in 
its chamber or a place in the electoral college. 
This Congress can do constitutionally. 

But let us not form a too hasty opinion of what 
the future will bring to the American Negro. 
America's greatest opportunity has come. Forces 
that have struggled for ages have been liberated ; 
institutions, so repugnant to the welfare of hu- 
manity, have been swept away ; but greater even 
than the overthrow of autocracy and militeury 
tyranny, is the change in ideals. A cloud has 
been lifted from the minds of men, and they be- 
hold each other in a new light. The people 
throughout the whole world have a more intelli- 
gent understanding of the real basis of liberty; 
mankind have been quickened, the people are 
astir, and the words liberty and opportunity have 
a new meaning ; among all races there is a grow- 
ing consciousness of individual power, and a 
growing desire to do something larger which we 
were all made and meant to do. It is our hope 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 93 

and belief that the dominant race in America 
will see the need and justice of opening the doors 
of opportunity to the Negro ; that the doctrine of 
the brotherhood of man will be proclaimed from 
the hill-tops, and made a guiding force in Amer- 
ica, and passed on as a heritage to all posterity. 

The Negro has the inspiration, he sees the goal 
— ^but where is the way? This soul awakening, 
this conviction on the part of the Negro that he 
can be free is the fruit of decades of experience 
and struggle. The year of great opportunity has 
come; but it comes w^ith a special meaning to 
those who know the way. It is their privilege, 
nay, their duty, to lead those who only see the 
goal. 

Blacks tone, in his commentaries, states that 
''political or civil liberty is no other than natural 
liberty so far restrained as is necessary and ex- 
pedient for the general advantage of the public." 

If it is necessary and expedient for the general 
advantage of the public that the liberty of the 
Negro should be restrained to a greater degree 
than that of other citizens of our country, then 
there is something radically wrong with the whole 
structure of our institutions, and the spirit of the 
public is opposed to our peculiar form of govern- 
ment. Furthermore, the Negro is a part of the 



94 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

public, and it is illogical to say that anything is 
for the general advantage of the public, unless it 
includes the public in its entirety. And to restrain 
the liberty of one people for the general advan- 
tage of another people is undemocratic, and con- 
trary to the spirit of free governments. 

It is obvious, therefore, that Blackstone's 
theory was that each member of a state or com- 
munity must surrender a portion of his natural 
liberty in order to make it possible for all other 
members of the state or community to enjoy cor- 
responding liberty. 

Many of the leaders in America would feel that 
a great deal of good had been accomplished, if 
something could be done to allay the restlessness 
of the Negro, but his desire for those things which 
God in His wisdom intended for all mankind, and 
for intercourse with the rest of the world, is re- 
sponsible for the Negro's progress since the days 
of slavery. 

It will be a dreadful day for the race when we 
shall be satisfied, when the desire to share in all 
the blessings of civilization and humanity shall 
cease to beat at the doors of our souls. It is in- 
conceivable that any people could be satisfied, in 
the midst of the most meuT'elous civilization the 
world has ever known, when they are surrounded 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 95 

by individual and organized eflForts that are cal- 
culated to deprive them of those things which are 
essential to their happiness and prosperity. In- 
deed, I would rather share the fate of the heathen 
in the jungles of Africa, and live upon the basis 
of equality with my fellowman, than to dwell in 
the midst of America's grand civilization, and be 
denied the rights, privileges and immunities of 
citizenship. 

The Negro is a living man; he is growing; he 
has become imbibed with the highest ideals of 
modern times. What is it, then, that inspires 
men with the desire to oppress him? Is it the 
anxiety for their own w^elfare? Surely this can- 
not be the cause. The Negro has learned to love 
America, he has honored the stars and stripes at 
home and abroad, he is at home in the fields as 
well as in the center of learning, and no people 
has fitted better into our civilization. In every 
phase of human effort, in every walk of life, we 
find the Negro not only playing an important 
part, but measuring up to the highest standards. 

But in this day of universal restlessness the 
world w^ill advance most rapidly if those who 
are trying to make things better will discontinue 
generalities and condescend to specific state- 



96 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

ments of their desires. The process of changing 
men's hearts is sometimes very gradual. 

But the Negro, like all other citizens, has 
certain rights ; these rights are clearly defined by 
the organic laws of our land, and to deny any 
citizen the full enjoyment of these rights is con- 
trary to the true spirit of democracy, and repug- 
nant to the free political institutions of America. 

Would that I could speak for the entire Negro 
race, who bow their heads in sorrow as they 
contemplate the wrongs which they suffer in 
America, and I would tell you that twelve mil- 
lion souls arise as one man and protest against 
the injustice of their position; but alas! I speak 
only for myself; and, speaking for myself, I 
venture to say that the day is coming when the 
patience and forbearance of the Negroes through- 
out the world will be justly rewarded. The hidden 
hand of Him who guides the destinies of all men 
will lead the faithful sons of Ham through the 
dark shadows of prejudice into the sunshine of 
human justice. But the undertone of every sup- 
plication should be, "Thy will be done.** 

I believe the day will come, it may not be in 
our time, it may be hidden behind the veil of a 
century yet to pass, but the day will come when 
there shall be an adjustment of the social, indus- 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 97 

trial and political differences between all nations 
and races of men ; when the color of a mans skin 
will not be a bar to his advancement, and when 
the Negro race will be numbered among the most 
favored peoples that ever came forth from the 
womb of time. And 

"His shall be larger manhood, saved 
for those. 
That walk unblanching through the 
trial-fires.** 

Those who have been opposed to admitting the 
Negro to equal rights are the more inexcusable in 
view of his achievements in all spheres of life. So 
successful indeed has he been wherever oppor- 
tunity has offered that longer opposition to his 
complete emancipation is harmful not only to the 
Negro but to the nation itself. In proportion as 
the industrial, economic and moral standard of 
the humblest citizen is raised, in proportion as his 
enjoyment of the rights, privileges and immuni- 
ties of citizenship are in conformity with the con- 
stitution and laws of our land; in the same pro- 
portion will America represent those ideals and 
principles of democracy for which the proudest 
blood of Europe and America has been shed. 

A significant declaration of principles was 
adopted at the Jewish Congress recently as- 



98 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

sembled in Philadelphia. It appeals to the Peace 
Conference to refuse recognition to any new 
state that does not grant to all its citizens equality 
of political, religious and social rights. This is 
the most effective form of persuasion. It does 
not encroach upon the domestic affairs of any 
nationality. Yet it does require a minimum 
standard of public morality before admitting a 
new state to the full fellowship of nations. 

The protection of minority races in a country, 
I admit, is not always an easy matter. Here in 
America we have a constitution that is fair to all 
peoples within our domain, regardless of race or 
religion. Our organic law is liberal and just ; but 
the thing that distresses the Negro is the lack of 
a proper spirit of the people, and a willingness to 
obey those laws. 

How will the American delegates treat this 
question if it ever arises in the Peace Conference? 
Soon we shall know, but not soon enough to in- 
form our readers. Our delegates will go into the 
conference with full knowledge that there are 
places in their own country where Negroes are 
burned at the stake by mobs ; that there are places 
in their own country where Negroes are forced to 
ride in public conveyances, commonly known as 
Jim Crow cars, that are hardly fit conveyances 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 99 

for cattle, and for which the same rate of fare is 
charged as is charged white people for decent 
accommodations; that there are states in their 
own country where the Negro has long since been 
denied the last vestige of his political rights ; that 
everywhere in their own country there are well 
organized efforts that are calculated to strip the 
Negro of the rights, privileges and immunities of 
citizenship guaranteed by our constitution, and 
which are so essential to life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness. But, I ask, what would be the 
attitude of the delegates of our country, if one of 
the conditions of membership in the proposed 
League of Nations should be the granting of 
equal rights to all citizens? Would they yield? 
If so, then into the waste-basket must go the con- 
stitutions of Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and all 
other states that have boldly inserted in their laws 
provisions that are in direct violation of our Fed- 
eral Constitution, and which are intended to 
abridge the rights of Negroes. 

But a vast deal of patience will be necessary 
while the world is readjusting itself to the new 
order. We, like other oppressed peoples, can 
only speculate as to the material advantages that 
will accrue to us from this world-controversy. 
Patience is a virtue with the Negro. We are a 



100 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

peculiar people, and the fact that through all the 
intervening years we have maintained our love 
for our country and loyalty toward its institutions 
is the wonder of the age. 

As the w^orld enters upon a realization of its 
new ideals, let the Negro, who has suffered most 
of all from oppression, and who has learned his 
lesson well, take a definite stand for freedom, and 
for the freedom of our people in other lands. 

The Negro can reasonably expect a change in 
the nation's attitude toward him. The war gave 
the Negro the opportunity to demonstrate that 
he is an important factor in America. In the 
long, troublesome days of the war, when there 
came the uncompromising acid test of the draft 
law, the Negro proved himself loyal to the stars 
and stripes, and I believe that America has appre- 
ciated the Negro in this war as never before in 
history. 

The colored soldier's tremendous capacity for 
service and sacrifice under the stress of war is no 
new thing. Their service at this time has only 
been in proportion to the frightful magnitude of 
the war. 

In ordinary times the Negro might be content 
with a fighting chance and a clear road to work 
out his own salvation through his own strivings. 



Shall America Be Safe For Democracy? 101 

That was before the war. Now, like other op- 
pressed peoples, we are not content to wait upon 
evolution at the old speed. Four years of war 
have crowded into the world centuries of change. 
A people's war must mean in the end a people's 
peace, and there cannot be a people's peace if any 
race of people is left victim to oppression. The 
Peace Conference may or may not bring about 
the desired ends. All will depend upon the lead- 
ers of the nations who assemble there. The 
terms of that peace will be the grim test of the 
faith of the leaders in the ideal of democracy. 
Upon their decision the people, including the Ne- 
groes, wait uncompromisingly. 

Meanwhile, American Negroes, as yet denied 
a part in the councils of the internations, must 
fight on for suffrage at home. There is some- 
thing rather ominous in that fight. Negroes take 
the phrase, **a w^ar for democracy," very literally. 
Editorials from the leading Negro papers show a 
resentment that is auspicious w^hen we realize 
that it is backed by twelve million Negroes. Shall 
the Negro, debarred from any voice in the prob- 
lems of reconstruction, be forced to look hope- 
lessly on, while leaders of other races struggle 
with each other to rebuild a better world? But, 



1 02 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

be this as it may, the struggle for freedom at 
home must go on. 



I 



CHAPTER IX 



Democracy As Applied to the Negro 

The difficulties involved in the application of 
democracy in the South are more intricate and 
perplexing because there is where the great 
masses of Negroes live. Once while I was talk- 
ing with a man of education and high position in 
Georgia, he said: 

**Our experience with the Negro here in the 
South since the Civil War convinces us that after 
all the democracy of which our forefathers 
dreamed is an impossibility. There is and can be 
no equality between Negroes and white men, and 
we might as well admit it.** He went on to re- 
view the familiar assertions concerning the 
masses of Negroes in the South; their dense ig- 
norance, their irresponsibility, their vices and 
crimes. **We are meeting these conditions,** he 
said, **by frank legislation which looks to the 
limitation of democracy. Politically we have the 
disfranchisement laws, socially we have the *Jim 

Crow* laws. We see here in the South that while 

103 



1 04 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

democracy is possible for white men, it is impos- 
sible for white and colored men together. We 
have no unkind feeling for the Negroes. We are 
perfectly willing that they should build up a de- 
mocracy of their own, if they can, but it must be 
apart from our white democracy.** But democ- 
racy cannot be limited by laws which apply to 
one race or class of citizens, it can only be de- 
stroyed, and upon its ruins will grow the worst 
form of oligarchy. 

How can the South expect the Negro to be free 
from ignorance, vice and crime, when every con- 
ceivable barrier is placed in the way of his moral 
and intellectual advancement, and when, by 
these very laws by which it is attempted to limit 
southern democracy, the Negro is denied that in- 
centive and inspiration which flow from the full 
enjoyment of all the rights, privileges and immu- 
nities of citizenship? 

In his remarks this southerner expressed the 
conviction not only of the southern white people, 
but of many northern white people as well. 

But let us not be confused by statute book de- 
mocracy. Democracy is not law, not customs, 
nor institutions. Democracy is a spirit. And if 
that spirit does not prevail among the people it is 
useless to retain laws on the statute books and 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 105 

provisions in our constitution which we do not 
intend to obey. Let us be willing to face the 
truth. Hie fact is that most of the people in the 
North do not believe in any real democracy as be- 
tween white and colored men. Distrust of the 
laws in this particular, habitual disobedience 
wherever the Negro is concerned, has spread 
until it has affected every human relationship. 
Men resort to personal vengeance instead of 
seeking the courts. The '*un written law" is more 
potent than the written law ; mobs bum and hang 
without punishment. 

The South does not believe and never has be- 
lieved in a democracy which applies to every man 
regardless of race, religion or condition. But 
neither does the North. Undoubtedly the North 
possesses more of the democratic spirit than the 
South; and yet, studying the growth of com- 
munities in the North which have large Negro 
populations, I am thoroughly convinced that if 
they had an3rthing like the proportion of Negroes 
that the South has, we should also find the North 
developing a spirit not unlike that of the South. 
Lynchings, mob-law, discrimination and preju- 
dice are not unknown today in the North. In 
the haunts of snobbery, in the hovels of vice, in 
the realms of pleasure, yes, even in the churches 



1 06 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

of the North, this same undemocratic spirit is to 
be found. The same spirit that has burned Negro 
colleges in Texas and hung Negroes to trees in 
Georgia, has driven them from towns in Indiana 
and lynched them in Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

The point I am making here is that the spirit 
of democracy which, after all, is the only thing 
that counts, is not exhausted with exercise any- 
where in this country. We have made a little 
relative progress toward democracy ; we have ex- 
pressed its shining ideals in some of our institu- 
tions, but for the most part the human heart is 
woefully aristocratic, ungenerous, prejudiced, 
and it expresses its haughtiness not only in the 
South, where the Negro suffers most, but in the 
North as well. In Chicago, in St. Paul, in Boston 
and other cities of the North, white parents often 
do not want their children to sit in schools where 
Negroes attend. This is the plain, unvarnished 
truth. 

But a tremendous endowment of power fol- 
lows any effort to arrive at the real truth of 
things. Thus the discussion in the South regard- 
ing the limitation of democracy on the statute 
books has opened the question as to where, hav- 
ing begun to limit, the line shall henceforth be 
drawn. If you study the political campaigns in 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 107 

the South, if you read the proceedings of the re- 
cent legislatures of southern states, you will dis- 
cover that, however blindly, the discussions have 
turned upon these questions : 

How many colored men can be cut off from 
participation in the political rights of the democ- 
racy? How many seats at the rear of the car 
shall the Negroes occupy? At what door shall the 
Negro enter the railway station? Shall Negroes 
be confined in the same prisons with white men, 
or take the oath with their hands on the same 
Bible, or be buried in the same cemeteries ? How 
many parts of white blood shall admit a Negro to 
real participation in democracy? What occupa- 
tions must Negroes pursue in the democracy? 
Some would compel them all to be servants, 
others would admit them as small business men, 
but not as professional men ; others still would let 
them practice medicine if they practiced only 
among their own people. 

All these questions may seem amusingly trivial 
to the outsider who cannot understand that they 
are, after all, profoundly and fundamentally edu- 
cative. 

Think what a tremendous experimental labor- 
atory in applied democracy is this South of ours ! 
A whole people trying to draw an illusive line be- 



1 08 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

tween some men who belong and some who do 
not! In each legislature, in each campaign, the 
line wavers, is broken down at some point, is 
newly drawn. Some awful event like a riot comes 
along and the best white and colored men, who 
have never come together or knew one another, 
are irresistibly forced into common eflFort. A 
white man says : **1 did not know there were any 
such intelligent Negroes in the country.*' An- 
other asks: * 'After all, are we not brothers?'* or 
some prominent Negro arises, an educator, who 
will not be classified, who breaks through many 
lines. **What shall be done with such a man?" 
these campaigners and legislators ask themselves. 
**He serves the South. He is useful to all of us. 
How can we legislate such a man out of the de- 
mocracy? But can we let him in and keep out 
the dark-skinned man who follows close be- 
hind?" 

So these southern men are concerning them- 
selves with real questions ; they are being driven 
by the tremendous logic of events. They will see 
sooner or later the utter absurdity and impossi- 
bility of limiting a democracy. It must either be 
a democracy or else a caste system or graded 
aristocracy, which, if it is forced, will petrify our 
civilization as it has petrified that of India. Once 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 109 

an attempt is made to draw lines and it is discov- 
ered that the whole attention of the people is cen- 
tered, as it is today in the South, on drawing and 
re-drawing the lines — to let a few more in or to 
keep a few more out, so we shall discover in 
time and by painful experience that if the Negro 
does not fit into our present sort of democracy, it 
is not the Negro who is wrong, but the democ- 
racy. The final test of any democracy is its 
humblest citizen. 

Science has taught us that every atom is neces- 
sary to every other atom in the universe. It is 
also teaching us that every human being is neces- 
sary to every other human being; that there can 
be no real democracy which leaves anyone out. 
Emerson says: **To science there is no poison; 
to botany no weed; to chemistry no dirt.** To 
this we may add: **To democracy no Negro.** 

Let me not be misunderstood. Some people 
think that democracy means that men must 
necessarily eat together, or marry one another, or 
indulge in some other curious ritualistic proof of 
equality. A dinner table is made the test of the 
philosophy of government and civilization! 
Could anything be more trivial! Let me empha- 
size again that democracy is not a code of social 
laws; democracy is a spirit. No word has been 



1 1 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

more misunderstood in this connection than the 
word equality. The equaUty of men, the supe- 
riority or inferiority of men — what do they 
mean ? I never yet have seen any two men who 
were equal in any outward particular whatsoever. 
I have met white men and white women and 
black men and yellow men; and lawyers and 
plumbers, and artists and preachers and street 
cleaners, but I have never yet been assured of 
any superiority or inferiority. I don't know how 
that is to be settled. Surely not at a dinner table 
or by different seats in the same car ! 

There is just one sort of equality that we can 
finally recognize, and that is the spiritual equality 
of efficiency. Does a man do his unselfish best 
at his job? If he does he is the equal of any man 
on earth ; he belongs here ; he is a necessary per- 
son, for that is the sort of equality of men which 
is meant by democracy. I have seen in the South 
the black man serving the white man, but I have 
seen in the South a reluctance on the part of the 
white man to return that service. I have heard 
the familiar argument, that God in His wisdom 
made a special people who are white in color to 
live easily, fare softly, sleep quietly, while an- 
other people who are dark colored do all the hard 
work and suffer in ignorance. But democracy on 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 1 1 1 

its way downward is curiously unobservant of 
special privileges, however bolstered by appeals 
to divine law; it does not believe that one man 
or a group of men has a monopoly of God*s gifts 
or his smiles; for democracy looks humbly for 
efficiency and when it finds the man who is a 
good servant it makes him the ruler and hero. 
No, the place of the Negro in the democracy is 
the place he can fill most efficiently. 

Thus the spirit of democracy is the spirit of 
common effort and sympathy between different 
sorts of people. In its essence it is intensely re- 
ligious, and it is the only thing that will finally 
solve the Negro question in the South. I have 
heard absurd talk of exportation, segregation, ex- 
termination — quack remedies every one, the 
mere temporizing with which delays the cure. 

What I say here is not visionary. I do not be- 
lieve that men can be made over by sudden revo- 
lutions. The human soul does not change 
quickly. It must meet sorry experience and go 
through the travail of thought, I wish I had some 
exciting or sensational remedy to propose. I 
might stir people to enthusiasm; but I have no 
such exciting message. I have only to offer cer- 
tain platitudinous suggestions: That we cannot 
look for laws to accomplish what the spirit back 



1 12 The Negro, Demcx:racy and The War 

of them does not warrant. The spirit of true de- 
mocracy is faint in this country. What we need 
is a revival of the spirit of democracy, both South 
and North. How can this be attained? Again 
only by old-fashioned remedies: I mean by edu- 
cation and the passionate preaching of the relig- 
ion of service. 

By education I do not mean that sort of train- 
ing which means soft hands and an ability to 
spend money ; but the training which means hard 
hands and the production of some good thing. 
And not for Negroes only would I recommend 
that sort of education, but for white boys and 
girls as well. The trouble with the education of 
a great many people today is that it trains men 
away from the common life, not into it. There 
are scores of institutions of learning in this coun- 
try where the work does not mean as much in 
the development of democracy as that at Hamp- 
ton, Tuskegee and other schools of that type. 

One of the finest tendencies in the North to- 
day is the effort to introduce agriculture and the 
mechanical arts in the common schools. Let us 
have farming and Greek and stock-raising and 
philosophy taught side by side in all the schools ! 
All are necessary in a democratic state and no one 
of them should be held in contempt. 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 1 1 3 

It is noticeable once a man (white or black) 
learns to do his job well, how he finds himself 
in a democratic relationship with other men. The 
wisest leaders in the South, both white and col- 
ored, are turning aside from the old noisy ways 
of the agitator and are getting down to the work 
of education, doing real things in a real world. 

Today multitudes in all the nations of the 
world are praying for a more liberal democracy; 
they gaze into the future with eager and expect- 
ant eyes; they see the growth of liberty coming 
swiftly like the rising sun. Those nations that 
have enjoyed democracy in some form or other, 
as well as those that have been held within the 
iron clutches of militarism, are rejoicing in hopes 
for the future, and each one dedicates itself to the 
common welfare of humanity, and renews its 
professions of faith in the divine power of the 
Almighty to rule over the destinies of men. 

Upon the adjournment of the Peace Confer- 
ence we shall know what each nation has gained 
or lost as a world power; we shall know what 
lost territory shall be restored to robbed repub- 
lics; we shall know the penalty that Germany, 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey must pay 
for wielding the tyrant's sword; we shall know 



1 1 4 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

what each nation promises to contribute toward 
the future peace of the world. 

From Poland, Armenia and Palestine, and 
from all the oppressed peoples of the eastern 
world, in their own tongues, will come pleas for 
long-delayed justice — individual freedom, relig- 
ious liberty, education and faithfulness to 
treaties. 

Then comes the Negro, with untarnished honor 
as a soldier and unswerving loyalty as a citizen, 
who has suffered every wrong, every robbery, 
pleading his right to share in the world-wide dis- 
pensation of justice. The Negro will point back 
behind the cloud of centuries of oppression and 
say, **I will maintain the high ideals of modern 
civilization.** He will not have to turn back and 
explain any violation of treaties for he did not 
violate any treaties. He can, therefore, expect to 
have the confidence of the free peoples of the 
earth. He will not have to explain any history of 
protracted religious persecutions, because he has 
not been guilty of them. Then no race should be 
freer than the Negro in an age when all the world 
is free. 

Throughout all these generations of sorrow 
the Negro has been fighting for freedom and de- 
mocracy. Fighting with prayers, fighting with 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 115 

books, fighting with political organizations, he 
battled up to the breaking out of this great war 
and all through the war he fought for the prin- 
ciples and ideals of world democracy. A race 
that has kept the faith like this will keep it for- 
ever, and should be enriched with all the new 
freedom of the Golden Age of Democracy. 

God grant that America will erect on her old 
freedom a nobler edifice of human liberty, deter- 
mined to realize all that the future holds for a 
fearless people. 

"Justice should have no kindred, friends, 
nor foes, nor hate, nor love; 
As free from passion as the Gods above. 

A discussion of the rights of a people in a 
democracy is hardly intelligent without some 
reference to their obligations as citizens. As we 
protest against the wrongs we suffer, as we de- 
mand the rights which we are denied, let us ever 
be conscious of the fact that the duties and re- 
sponsibilities that devolve upon us by virtue of 
our citizenship are equal to those of the most 
favored people in the land. 

The best service any man can render to his 
country is to support its constitution and obey 
its laws. The highest standards of industry, in- 
telligence and morality can only be attained by 



1 1 6 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

each one consecrating himself to the cause of 
humanity and ^unselfishly devoting himself to 
some movement with a higher and nobler pur- 
pose than mere personal advantage. 

The world today is face to face with social dif- 
ficulties, with pressing problems, haunted by the 
evils and miseries of dangerous conditions, and 
the Negro, like other races, must not fail to seek 
enlightenment as to his own duty in the many 
difficult situations. What have we to offer as our 
share of the common good? Surely there is no 
better contribution a man can make toward the 
redemption of society than to purify and conse- 
crate himself. The giving of all one possesses, 
without giving himself, will not do much for the 
welfare of society — **the gift without the giver 
is bare.*' 

Turning away from the useless things in life 
and from the paths of evil and giving all we have 
for the common good of society, will tend to 
purify our ambitions and motives and purge our 
souls of that selfishness which not only retards 
our own progress, but deprives society of the 
things it can justly claim. We must scrutinize 
and examine ourselves and our motives, and de- 
termine whether we are bearing our share of the 
burden. 



Democracy as Applied to the Negro 1 1 7 

We cannot avoid becoming involved in the un- 
rest of the world by running away from diffi- 
culties. We, who seek to make the world a better 
place for us to live in, must also seek to make the 
world better because we live in it. 

**When the last dawns are fallen on gray, 
And all life's toils and ease complete, 
They know who work, not they who play, 
If rest is sweet." 

No exception can be made in the case of any 
man; if we would enjoy a better day, we must 
make the best use of the present. We must do 
all that may be in our power to strengthen every 
fiber that goes to make up the entire fabric of 
society. The man who thinks only of himself 
and lives only for himself, is already self-con- 
demned. If we have no need to work for a liv- 
ing, there is still an obligation resting on us to 
offer our services to the public good in other 
ways. We have recently seen very striking 
examples in our own country of men giving their 
energies to unrecompensed work in social, phil- 
anthropic, and religious activity. They were in- 
spired by a sense of duty to God and their fellow- 
man. 

I do not intend to intimate that the average 
Negro is lacking in appreciation of his duty to 



118 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

his fellow-man. Indeed, a race that has endured 
the hardships of the American Negro, cannot help 
but have a sympathetic feeling toward his fellow- 
man. The Negro has been charitable even to his 
oppressors, realizing that 

**To err is human and to forgive divine.** 
But the great truth that I am trying to bring 
home to the people of my race is that all our 
lives come into touch with other lives at some 
point or other. All of us can render some service 
to our fellows. We must consider that our con- 
duct is ever affecting some. We must take our 
life seriously as a high opportunity, and let the 
thought of service sink into our hearts, redeem- 
ing our lives from selfishness, and making them 
the service of God and of our brethren. 



CHAPTER X 



Some Remedies For the Race Problem 

What is the most obvious remedy for this great 
problem commonly known as the * 'Negro Prob- 
lem**? It is to remove the cause. Many times 
the idea of deportation of the Negroes has been 
suggested ; it was suggested by Thomas Jefferson 
more than a century ago. An instant objection 
is that it is resisted by nearly every one of the 
twelve million Negroes, South and North. They 
no more wish to cross the ocean eastward than 
their ancestors did to come westward. The Ne- 
groes are attached to their homes and would no 
more be willing to take up their abode in other 
lands than would the American white man. An 
equally strong objection is that the white people 
absolutely will not permit the Negro to leave the 
country. As far back as 1889 attempts were 
made to draw Negroes to Kansas, but the boats 
that were carrying them were stopped by armed 
men and the Negroes were driven back with the 

shotgun. 

119 



120 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

Nevertheless, where the Negro is there he 
stays. In some respects there seems to be a mut- 
uality between whites and blacks that cannot be 
destroyed. The real confidence of the whites in 
the Negro race is shown by their almost universal 
practice of committing their little children to 
Negro nurses. 

To deport the Negro would mean the social 
disruption as well as the economic ruin of the 
greater part of the South, and the advocacy of 
that method which one hears occasionally from 
southern men is simply a piece of acting. Every- 
body knows that there is no substitute for the 
Negro in the South, since the South has never 
been able to attract immigrants. Most immi- 
grants work with their hands and avoid regions 
where there is a poor opportunity for their chil- 
dren, and where handwork classes them with a 
servile race. The only foreign element that has 
in recent years sought the South is the Italian, 
thousands of whom are to be found in the Mis- 
sissippi bottoms. 

A remedy not publicly advocated, yet prac- 
ticed in some remote parts of the South, is peon- 
age. It is not necessary to go to the length of 
some state laws which assume to legalize con- 
tracts by which the laborer agrees to work or 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 121 

else to accept a whipping and a bull pen ; servi- 
tude is realized if they are deliberately kept in 
such a condition of debt and dependence that 
they cannot acquire land or move about freely. 
The testimony of people who have visited rural 
plantations is that in many places great advan- 
tage is taken of the ignorance of the Negro ; that 
he is cheated in his efforts to buy land, that in 
some places he is a serf, tied to the land. Inas- 
much as probably a majority of the white people 
in the South take the position that the Negro was 
better off in slavery than in freedom, there is in 
some regions insufficient healthy public senti- 
ment to protect the rural laborer. 

Another method widely applied in the South 
is that advocated by the late Senator Tillman in 
this language: **We shall have to send a few 
more Negroes to hell.** This brute method is a 
deliberate attempt to keep the race down by oc- 
casionally shooting Negroes because they are 
bad, or loose-tongued, or influential, or acquiring 
property; and by insisting that the murder of a 
white man, and sometimes even a saucy speech 
by a Negro to a white man, is to be followed by 
swift, relentless and often tormenting death. 

But in every case of passionate conflict be- 
tween two races the higher one loses most, be- 



122 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

cause it has most to lose; aside from other con- 
siderations, lynch law as a remedy for lawless- 
ness of the Negroes has the disadvantage of de- 
moralizing the white race, and eventually of ex- 
posing white men to the uncontrollable passions 
of other white men. The usual, though not the 
real, justification for lynching is that nothing else 
can protect or avenge white w^omen. Rapes and 
lynchings aggravate, but do not cause race 
hostility. 

Another remedy is education. It would be 
very unjust to leave the impression that all the 
white people of the South approve of solving the 
Negro problem by aggravating it. Since the Civil 
War the South has made some small provision 
for Negro education, though it somewhat exag- 
gerates its benefactions by dwelling on the fact 
that the Negroes pay two percent of the taxes and 
furnish nearly one-half of the school children. In 
New York and Chicago there is no protest be- 
cause the people who furnish nineteen-twentieths 
rof the school children pay only one twentieth of 
the taxes. 

The South, however, begins to realize that 
reducing the present illiteracy in the South 
among both Negroes and whites is not all the 
battle. The ability to read, write and cipher will 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 123 

not make model citizens out of the morally de- 
graded, whether they be white or black, and this 
is true in the North as well as in the South. There 
is a constantly growing interest in the South in 
industrial education for both races. This is partly 
due to the success of Hampton and Tuskegee and 
other like institutions, which have proven the ex- 
pansion of mind resulting from the more intelli- 
gent forms of handiwork combined with a judic- 
ious use of books. In these schools a great part 
of the good is done by the character of the teach- 
ers, and nobody can see the fine body of young, 
alert minds trained by the best universities of the 
country which make up the faculty, say of Tus- 
kegee, without hopefulness that they will train as 
well as instruct. Yet from the southern point of 
view their success will raise the same ultimate 
difficulty as other forms of education for the Ne- 
groes. The whites of the South in general do not 
wish to see leaders and organizers arise among 
the Negroes; they distrust the Negro preachers, 
and have a contempt for Negro professors, law- 
yers and physicians. If industrial education pro- 
duces good blacksmiths, carpenters and domestic 
servants the South will be pleased, though, per- 
haps, the trades unions will have something to 
say; but the South does not wish to see political 



1 24 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

and social leaders springing up among the Ne- 
groes, lest they attempt such organization as 
would give them too much power. 

A panacea recommended by some p>eople 
most genuinely interested in the Negro race is the 
so-called **race separation.** The phrase does not 
mean the color line, for that is now so strict that 
a short while ago a white visitor to a rich Negro 
planter was told by his host that if they both sat 
down at the family table the house would prob- 
ably be burned over the head of the owner. No 
Negro by character or behaviour can acquire 
membership in a white club or the right to sit in 
the presence of a white man, or even a resting 
place for his dead in the same enclosure with his 
white neighbor. That, however, is a closed chap- 
ter; so-called social equality does not exist, can- 
not be made to exist, and did not exist when there 
was a squad of Union troops in every town in the 
South. 

**Race separation,** then, means that whites 
and blacks shall keep up two distinct social and 
business organizations. That Negroes shall de- 
posit in African banks, establish their separate 
corporation stores, patronize Negro theaters. So 
far this plausible regime has made little headway. 
The idea is in practice unworkable. The plan 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 125 

instantly runs aground when the white dealer is 
called on to deprive himself of all Negro custom. 
What would become of the retailers of Charles- 
ton if the Negro laborers were to withdraw the 
purchases which their weekly wages enable them 
to make? And in rural regions, where the 
Negroes most predominate, almost all large plan- 
tations and country stores are carried on by 
white people. 

Race separation, is impossible in the sense of 
building an invisible wire netting between the 
two races, for they tread the same streets, read 
the same papers, drink the same water, ride in 
the same trolley cars and trains, and each is 
indispensable to the other. 

If the foregoing remedies do not seem thor- 
oughgoing, what else has been seriously put for- 
ward by the South? Practically nothing; yet in 
the deepest grooves of the Southern mind is the 
conviction that the Negro question is to be solved 
only by Southerners, and that even a suggestion 
of interest on the part of Northern people is an 
impertinence. The same feeling permeated the 
pro-slavery literature of ante-bellum days. 

Does anyone soberly think it possible for any 
one section of the United States to settle its dif- 
ficulties alone? Under the Federal system we 



126 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

are **every one members one of another** — the 
people of South CaroHna through their share in 
making the Federal Constitution have modified 
the constitution of Massachusetts; the Congress- 
ional representatives of Massachusetts in their 
turn have to settle questions which deeply affect 
South Carolina. The United States of America 
has a character to maintain. If the public auth- 
orities of Colorado arrest and deport people in 
defiance of right and justice, have not the people 
of the South a right to protest? Does not injus- 
tice toward the Negro in the South injure the 
good name of the whole country and thus con- 
cern the North? The attempt of the South to 
muzzle critics of their 'Peculiar Institution" 
melted down once for all in the furnace of the 
Civil War. 

Any remedy for the ills that beset the South 
must recognize that the condition of the Negroes 
is discouraging; the dark picture must, however, 
include also about half the poor whites, who, 
though superior to the Negroes in intellect, over- 
match them in bloodthirstiness. These are the 
conditions from which the community must ex- 
tricate itself, or admit that it cannot civilize its 
own people. 

It is perfectly true, and the people of the North 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 127 

must candidly acknowledge and appreciate it, 
that many Southerners are making genuine and 
self-sacrificing effort to upraise their colored 
neighbors, by personal interest in their education, 
by protection of their rights, by example of mod- 
eration and respect for law, by appreciation (so 
far as the color line permits) of their best men. 
These are the white people who ought to solve 
the problem, if anybody, yet they are the very 
people who see the only solution in a very slow 
elevation of the colored race, during which many 
things may come in to accentuate the race prob- 
lem. 

On one side the remedy is the slow develop- 
ment of the Negro race, the practice of those 
homely virtues of industry, steadiness, thrift and 
habits of saving which have made the Northern 
communities what they are. The Southern people 
are right in demanding that the Negroes them- 
selves shall discourage and discountenance the 
criminals of their race, and make it their busi- 
ness to help to bring to legal, orderly punishment 
the criminals who arouse the most fearful resent- 
ment of the whites. 

The Negroes must be taught to respect and 
honor the best members of their own race, and 
to bring up their children to follow such models. 



128 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

That is the way, and the only way, in which a 
race can rise. 

But how can the Negroes be expected to re- 
spect and admire what the whites despise? Can 
the poor white call the thriftlessness of the Negro 
hopeless? Is the Negro to set the examples of 
law-abiding to the white man? Are the South- 
ern whites to abjure the duty of the highest in 
the community to make the standard of coolness, 
patience and observance of law? A South Caro- 
lina storekeeper who stepped into a Negro 
school and made a speech of encouragement 
found himself in danger of. being mobbed and 
made an abject recantation. But, why not 
everywhere, if the Negro schools are without suf- 
ficient competent teachers, put educated white 
teachers in them, such as are employed in 
Charleston? Why do not the white people with 
good will open the door of opportunity to a few 
places in the public service to Negroes whom they 
recognize as qualified? 

The reason is simple; the Southern whites 
have an unfounded and unformulated fear that 
somehow white supremacy is endangered. 

The true remedy for the South is to do with 
the Negro exactly w^hat his brethren are doing 
up North with the Pole, the Slovak and the Hun- 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 129 

garian. Why does he not make the best of a 
bad job and not the worst ? Why not set before 
the Negro every possible inducement to rise, by 
facilitating the purchase of land, by opening new 
industries, by granting to the best Negroes such 
scanty rewards as the white man's color line per- 
mits ? The Southern white community may well 
ponder the meaning of one of the late Booker 
T. Washington's noblest utterances: *'I will 
never allow any man to drag me down by mak- 
ing me hate him !*' 

None of the remedies which I have suggested 
are harsh or unjust; I do not advocate the over- 
throw of anything, nor any fundamental 
changes ; I contend only for the fulfillment of the 
guarantees in the Constitution, for the impartial 
interpretation and application of the law, and 
for common justice and equal opportunities for 
the Negro. Besides other considerations, this of 
course must include more liberal provision for 
the education of Negro boys and girls than has 
been made heretofore, both by Federal and State 
governments. The question of Federal and State 
aid to Negro education in the South is one that 
lingers after the book is closed. Taking into 
consideration sixteen Southern states, the District 
of Columbia and Missouri, with a population in 



/ 



1 30 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

1 9 1 6 of 23,682,352 white and 8,906,879 Negroes 
and of children between six and fourteen years 
of age numbering 4,889,762 whites and 2,023,- 
1 08 Negroes, it appears that the average salary of 
a teacher in white schools was $10.32 per pupil 
and in colored schools $2.89, and that the per- 
centage of illiteracy in whites was 7.7 per cent 
and among colored 33.3 per cent. 

One of the after-war problems is going to be 
education, and it will be found of inestimable 
value that such institutions as Hampton and Tus- 
kegee have prepared the way for a getting to- 
gether of whites and blacks to work out their 
common destiny. The history of Negro educa- 
tion in the South would contain many sad pages, 
were it not for such schools. 

The success of thousands of students of the 
industrial schools for Negroes in the South is a 
tribute to the wonderful foresight, zeal and 
genius of General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 
who established Hampton Institute fifty years 
ago. 

At the close of the Civil war, the economic 
prostration, the political confusion, the race an- 
tagonism, and the sectional bitterness threw the 
question of the education of the Negro into a state 
of uncertainty. Individual attempts were made 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 131 

by philanthropists to aid the Negro by means of 
schools, and political efforts found expression in 
the Freedmen's Bureau and similar agencies. But 
philanthropy was sadly inadequate for such a 
stupendous task; national endeavors were viti- 
ated by partisan politics; and the North and 
South became more estranged during the period 
of reconstruction than by the Civil War. But 
during those days of intense feeling agencies were 
at work in modest and humble ways to bring 
about better conditions. Among these agencies 
was Hampton Institute. 

It was not a simple matter by any means, this 
problem of educating the Negro. On the one hand 
was the impatient North that thought that all that 
was necessary was to set up New England school 
houses, and the work w^ould be done; while on 
the other hand the prostrate South felt that the 
Negro was not fitted for education. Between the 
two lay the unfortunate cause of the estrange- 
ment. 

The need was for practical-minded men and 
women, who not only could educate the Negro, 
but who could do it in a way to make the whites 
appreciate that education. General Armstrong 
was peculiarly qualified for that work. The son 
of an American missionary living in the Hawaiian 



n 



1 32 The Negro, Democracy and The War 

Islands and educated with the natives, he aheady 
had a fine appreciation of the race question when 
as a young man he returned to this country to 
finish his education. The example of his father's 
work among the Hawaiians enabled him to grasp 
the Negro problem better than our native born, 
for he had seen the handicap under which a back- 
ward, or perhaps one should say neglected, race 
labors, and at the same time he understood the 
feeling of the more advanced races. To this he 
added deep religious convictions that enabled him 
to appeal to the emotional nature of the Negro. 
So that, taking everything into consideration, it 
may be doubted if any man was better qualified 
for his work. 

Character was of primal essence in all of Gen- 
eral Armstrong's thought. Education as he con- 
ceived it, was not for the purpose of making 
scholars or teaching professions, but for making 
men and women. At that time responsibility 
with the Negro was an idea that had to be in- 
stilled into a mind associated with ownership by 
another, now charged with ownership of itself. 
As General Armstrong put it, **Ideas take root 
in a moment, habits only in a generation.** 

But who was willing at that time to wait a 
generation to see ideas grow into habits? The 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 133 

North thought the teaching of the Negro wouM 
immediately transform him into a being equal 
in every way to the white race ; while the South 
believed the Negro was physically incapable of 
ever acquiring the attributes of the civilized races. 
History has proved, however, that both were 
wrong. 

Some of the attempts made by zealous and 
self-denying missionary teachers utterly antag- 
onized local opinion, and did little more than 
create a condition of impotent unrest among the 
Negroes; but a few grasped the broader view 
and possessed the patience to work and wait. Of 
these, General Armstrong may be placed among 
the first. His was the practical mind. He realized 
that however much learning an individual Negro, 
isolated from race and former environment, might 
acquire, it woud not convince the Southern whites 
that the mass of black people could or should be 
so educated. But he believed that if young men 
and women could be given a course of social, 
religious, industrial and intellectual training that 
would enable them to go back among their people 
and live that life, there would be a positive and 
permanent gain. 

This has been the mission of these industrial 
and normal schools throughout the South. They 



1 34 The Negro. Democracy and The War 

have trained and distributed among their people 
Negroes who, by their example, convinced the 
better class of whites not only that the Negro can 
be educated, but that there is nothing else that 
can be done with him. 

And so education must in the future, as it has 
in the past, play an important part in the progress 
of the Negro race; education not only of the 
blacks, but of the whites as well; educate them 
away from the silly prejudices and jealousies that 
are alone responsible for race discrimination, jim- 
crowism, disfranchisement and lynching. Pro- 
fessions of faith in the Fatherhood of God, are 
meaningless unless we accept the doctrine of the 
brotherhood of man. 

We have suffered infinite agony in silence and 
sighed vainly through the ages for deliverance 
from our fetters, while our manhood has been 
taunted, and we have been branded with the 
vulgar stigma of inferiority. But the dawn of 
another day is breaking upon the world and the 
Negro is at last awakening from the nightmare of 
the ages. The light of the new day beams from 
his eyes and the spirit of progress thrills his eager 
soul. 

The Negro demands the whole of freedom for 
the whole of his race. Not charity, not sympathy, 



Some Remedies For The Race Problem 135 

but justice. More than this we do not ask, less is 
contrary to the spirit of the free poHtical institu- 
tions of America. The ballot is but a paltry con- 
cession to our ambition and determination, and 
it is the shame and reproach of the South that it 
has robbed the Negro of his birthright and gloried 
in his humiliation and in its brutal conquest. 

Speed the day when the American Negro shall 
be free! Then, too, shall the American white 
man be free, and they together emancipated from 
the degrading ignorance and superstition of the 
past. 

THE END 



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